450 réponses à ce sujet

[didymos1120]

ratzerman wrote...

Totally agree. Market the game to whoever you want, but don't insult your existing fans. David's "who even remembers what happened in the first game?" comment felt like a slap in the face.

And just to fend off the quotation police, yes, I paraphrased his actual remark.

Mere paraphrasing or excerpting wasn't the issue.  It was the fact that doing so altered the meaning and favored a particular interpretation by omitting context.  In this instance, he actually did mean that, so the fact that it's a paraphrase doesn't matter.

Modifié par didymos1120, 10 août 2011 - 03:22 .

[Badpie]

SpiffySquee wrote...

Buyer, "I've never really played Mass Effect, but 3 looks great! I'm also looking at buying Skyrim... I wonder which one I should buy."

ME3 Rep, "Whoa Whoa!!! You want to just buy ME3???? Silly Billy, you can't do that! We insist that this game will be completely pointless unless you shell out 50-60 bucks for the first 2 games! And then you should shell out another 30 for all the DLC. Then you have to devote 60+ hours to the games. Then, and only then, could you possibly understand ME3."

Buyer, "Oh.... guess I'll just get Skyrim then."

ME3, "I love discouraging the new fan base just to keep the old fan base happy. It's a great business model...."

I don't think anyone here is saying that new gamers shouldn't be able to pick up ME3 and enjoy it.  Nor should Bioware being saying "oh god you'll never get it if you don't play the first 2."  It's about balancing your marketing to appeal to both new and existing fans.  And every bit of marketing I've seen in the last couple years as an existing fan has made me squirm.

[Someone With Mass]

It's more like the books. You'll get by just fine without them, but they can give you a better insight about the games and the characters.

[ratzerman]

Badpie wrote...

It's about balancing your marketing to appeal to both new and existing fans.  And every bit of marketing I've seen in the last couple years as an existing fan has made me squirm.

Same here. Remember the ME1 trailer? Shepard's voice over... "Many decisions lie ahead. None of them easy." The emotion in that trailer... that was what originally sold me on the game. I don't think decisions have been mentioned in official marketing ever since. It's all been explosions and bravado.

I probably should point out that things are't quite as bad now as they were in the lead up to the ME2 launch. Back then, all we had was Jarrett Lee sporadically posting reassurances on the bioboards. The devs were almost completely silent. This time around, it's very nice to have Casey Hudson reaching out to us on twitter. His voice has made a big difference in the amount of hand-wringing us old timers have to do.

[matt-bassist]

everytime this douche opens his mouth i cringe more and more. god get someone who can actually speak to both veterans and new-comers and please both.

[DNRB]

Probably marketing, but the whole idea is stupid. If you think new players each game are more important, then don't start a triology. I understand it from a bussiness point of view, but again, don't start a triology, if you're not going for continuity and disregard the first (two) part(s). Especialy if it's an important selling point of the series (decisions).

[Badpie]

I'm not worried about them completely disregarding whatever I did in the previous games. I'm worried that those things will be relegated to small cameos, emails, news reports or brief mentions that have no bearing on story, relationships or anything else. I understand those things for little side quests like the Nirali Bhatia thing - getting an email from Samesh is fine. It was a tiny sidequest.

But when my sole survivor Shepard can't even mention Akuze to the Illusive Man and new players are suddenly confused as to why the Virmire survivor is so upset about you working with Cerberus - that means that somewhere within the story the writers have totally dropped the ball on importing information.  And that's probably because they didn't want to burden new players with taking the time to learn the Cerberus backstory well enough.

I have a problem with stuff like that.  And that's what I worry about when all the marketing is directed at new folks.

Modifié par Badpie, 10 août 2011 - 04:32 .

[SalsaDMA]

SpiffySquee wrote...

Buyer, "I've never really played Mass Effect, but 3 looks great! I'm also looking at buying Skyrim... I wonder which one I should buy."

ME3 Rep, "Whoa Whoa!!! You want to just buy ME3???? Silly Billy, you can't do that! We insist that this game will be completely pointless unless you shell out 50-60 bucks for the first 2 games! And then you should shell out another 30 for all the DLC. Then you have to devote 60+ hours to the games. Then, and only then, could you possibly understand ME3."

Buyer, "Oh.... guess I'll just get Skyrim then."

ME3, "I love discouraging the new fan base just to keep the old fan base happy. It's a great business model...."

Because your version is ofcourse the only alternative way to go about it, right?

Man... You must really get out more and learn to get some perspective on things...

On another note I thought it was funny you used Skyrim as an example, given that all the buzzwords used by "ME3 rep" would already turn away the "buyer" before we got the point of the story.

Yatzee said it pretty well in his latest review. Playing triple A games is starting to feel like eating McDonalds.

[Iakus]

Badpie wrote...

I don't think anyone here is saying that new gamers shouldn't be able to pick up ME3 and enjoy it.  Nor should Bioware being saying "oh god you'll never get it if you don't play the first 2."  It's about balancing your marketing to appeal to both new and existing fans.  And every bit of marketing I've seen in the last couple years as an existing fan has made me squirm.

Exactly.

One could jump into The Return of the King and pick up what's going on.  Same with Return of the Jedi.  Yes, you can pick up who the characters are and what's going on easily enough.  You can enjoy the story without getting lost.  But it's not a great place to start.  A lot of stuff has already happened.  A lot of adventure had, revelations made.  

Mass Effect 3: Return of the Shepard may be a decent strand alone game, but it should not be a "perfect place to start"

[Candidate 88766]

Badpie wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...

Buyer, "I've never really played Mass Effect, but 3 looks great! I'm also looking at buying Skyrim... I wonder which one I should buy."

ME3 Rep, "Whoa Whoa!!! You want to just buy ME3???? Silly Billy, you can't do that! We insist that this game will be completely pointless unless you shell out 50-60 bucks for the first 2 games! And then you should shell out another 30 for all the DLC. Then you have to devote 60+ hours to the games. Then, and only then, could you possibly understand ME3."

Buyer, "Oh.... guess I'll just get Skyrim then."

ME3, "I love discouraging the new fan base just to keep the old fan base happy. It's a great business model...."

I don't think anyone here is saying that new gamers shouldn't be able to pick up ME3 and enjoy it.  Nor should Bioware being saying "oh god you'll never get it if you don't play the first 2."  It's about balancing your marketing to appeal to both new and existing fans.  And every bit of marketing I've seen in the last couple years as an existing fan has made me squirm.

Why bother? Most existing fans will buy ME3 to see the conclusion to the story they've invested 60 hours in already per character. The ones that aren't going to buy ME3 have already made up their minds. Bioware needs to make up this deficit by attracting new fans and the only way to do that is to say these new fans won't need ME1 and ME2 too as presumably these new players saw ME1 and ME2 and decided not to buy them for whatever reason.

[Badpie]

Gathering new fans to make up for the loss of old ones is fine and all, but why lose the old ones to begin with?

Unless of course you've decided that you simply don't care about the old fans anymore because you've decided to make the remaining games the kind of games the old fans wouldn't like and those fans are now acceptable losses. Meanwhile it doesn't matter to you because now you have a completely different kind of game with a completely different larger demographic and the prior kind of game and fan are long gone.

I really don't think this is what they're doing (or at least I really hope not), but sometimes it sure feels that way.  This is why I hate the "well you bought the first two so you're obviously going to buy the third" argument.  Once game companies start thinking like that, why bother to make the final game any good at all since everyone is "just going to buy it anyway"?

Modifié par Badpie, 10 août 2011 - 05:53 .

[littlezack]

The way I see it, the marketing has a two-fold approach.

The average gamer doesn't investigate too deeply into the games they buy - if they're not grabbed immediately by the concept, the purchace is already lost. ME3 status as the third in a trilogy already serves as a strike against it; there are people who will be turned off by that, and it'll be the same people who don't bother to go digging as deep as we do into the game.

For them, that's what the flashier side of the marketing campaign is aimed at.

For people who are long time fans, though, you're digging deep. You're reading the tweets. You're hanging around the boards. You're looking at the screens and analyzing this and that. You're digging into the stats and the details they're releasing. All that's there, and we'll likely have much more of it to come as we get closer to release.

As some have said, it's a balance between two radically different styles of marketing aimed at two different demographics - old timers vs. new bloods. I don't think it's always going to be a perfect balance, and they probably will lean towards trying to attract new gamers, since old fans are the safer bet, financially. But for long-time fans, I think there's quite a bit to digest, as well, and we'll continue to get more.

[Badpie]

If you want to market to new folks flashier and bigger and better, more badass, sexier, more 'splosions etc. fine. I just don't want whatever is marketed that way to be a true representation of the final product. And lately Bioware games have been gradually making the transition to exactly what they've been marketing. And I dislike this new direction.

Modifié par Badpie, 10 août 2011 - 06:21 .

[shepskisaac]

It's his job to sell this game. And by looking at this:







It looks like he's doing a damn good job. The sales of ME1 & ME2 weren't exactly boiling-hot, especially when compared to other hits franchises. So yeah, David should say whateher has to be said to sell more copies of this game. Ain't worried ME3 will neglect old players, we already know the choices and all will matter.

[littlezack]

I don't think that's the case with ME3.

There's going to be a lot of action in the game, sure - we are building to a climatic finale. So, yes, there will be lots of explosions and destruction and action. But just because there's a lot of that doesn't mean that other things are going to be ignored. Even from the little bit we've seen so far, we've observed more in-depth customization options and missions that revolve around characters and situations that could have potential variables - we've already seen Mordin, Wrex, and Legion having important roles, and it's completely possible for all three of them to be dead at this point. On top of that, we've gotten some good info from Casey Hudson pointing towards an experience that'll be solid for both sides of the fence.

I respect your worrying and I get where it comes from, but I see more reason to be optimistic than pessimistic.

[didymos1120]

ratzerman wrote...

Remember the ME1 trailer? Shepard's voice over... "Many decisions lie ahead. None of them easy." The emotion in that trailer... that was what originally sold me on the game..

That was really the only one like that with ME1, though they did touch on decision-making in the early E3 material as well (indirectly, however, as the emphasis was not on decisions and consequences, but the conversation wheel and the quality of the digital acting). It also wasn't a trailer, just an ad rendered with other software than the game engine, and containing no actual in-game material.

That latter bit is important: while you may have gone "Oooh, choices!" when watching that, if you had no familiarity with Bioware and/or hadn't been aware of ME before then, then that was just another game commercial that told a little story that gave a bit of the setting's flavor.  Which reaction I can personally attest to: first time I saw it, I had no clue what the hell kind of game it was. 

The actual trailers were similar to the ME2 ones, showcasing combat gameplay and snippets of various cutscenes.  And a lot of the other promo videos for ME1 were focused on the classes in combat, much like they did with ME2

I don't think decisions have been mentioned in official marketing ever since. It's all been explosions and bravado.

Yes they were.  That was the primary focus of the "Sci vs. Fi" special Bioware did with the SyFy channel.  See also: the N7 Dev Diary video. That choice aspect was mentioned here and there in other videos they released as well.  It's also worth noting that the better part of the ME2 marketing was actually about introducing the characters, with each squadmate getting their own video, and the "gather a team" thing being the focus of the cinematic trailer (which was ME2's equivalent of the "Distress Call" thing, including being the "attract mode" video that plays if you just sit at the menu screen).  Then there was the whole "Art of the Game" series they did with Machinima, which was all about character, cinematic and level design, and art direction, with barely any explosions to be seen.

And of course, this completely ignores all the stuff said in the numerous interviews they did to hype the game.

Shorter version:  ME2 marketing actually spent more time on choice than ME1's, and the "'splosion quotient" as compared to ME1 is greatly exaggerated around here.

Modifié par didymos1120, 10 août 2011 - 06:32 .

[Badpie]

littlezack wrote...

I don't think that's the case with ME3.

There's going to be a lot of action in the game, sure - we are building to a climatic finale. So, yes, there will be lots of explosions and destruction and action. But just because there's a lot of that doesn't mean that other things are going to be ignored. Even from the little bit we've seen so far, we've observed more in-depth customization options and missions that revolve around characters and situations that could have potential variables - we've already seen Mordin, Wrex, and Legion having important roles, and it's completely possible for all three of them to be dead at this point. On top of that, we've gotten some good info from Casey Hudson pointing towards an experience that'll be solid for both sides of the fence.

I respect your worrying and I get where it comes from, but I see more reason to be optimistic than pessimistic.

Generally so do I.  You'll usually find that I'm a pretty positive pro-Bioware voice on these boards.  And I think the discussion on this thread has evolved from the original post.  I do feel good about the things Casey was saying, but I remember them saying similar things for ME2.  And while I love ME2 I loved it less than ME1 because I felt like there were a few things they didn't make good on.  I want to love ME3 even more than ME1 and I think there is real potential for that to happen.  But it won't happen if the fears and concerns I express come true.

[Ihatebadgames]

I would be more optimistic if the same had not been said more or less for DA ll.Yes I know diffrent people doing ME3 but they get their money from the same boss, who aproved of DA 2 and will aprove of ME3.Also I don't like being insulted "rainman".The devs were saying semi-good things about DA2.I just want a game that will make the money I put into 3 games and Guides worth every penny.

[CaolIla]

In every interview I saw - regardless of who was talking - that statement "Best starting point" always popped up. And it's actually a bit insulting. I've never played a sequel of a game without understanding what's going on, if I didn't play the prequel. I've never even heard of a game that has this problem, so as far as I know: nobody can even think that because a game is a sequel he won't have fun with it / won't understand it / has to buy the prequel(s) to get it.
So where would anybody get the idea?
So either they want to insult the intelligence of potential buyers who didn't play the prequels or they used something that had a negative impact on their thought process.
The statement is just stupid and to be honest: it doesn't surprise me that it's made over and over again, we're talking about the same company that let someone step in front of cameras to talk about the awesome button. It's not up there with that abomination of marketing, but it's close to it.
I don't want to know how much they could sell if they would actually start making good marketing...

[Whatever42]

Ihatebadgames wrote...

I would be more optimistic if the same had not been said more or less for DA ll.Yes I know diffrent people doing ME3 but they get their money from the same boss, who aproved of DA 2 and will aprove of ME3.Also I don't like being insulted "rainman".The devs were saying semi-good things about DA2.I just want a game that will make the money I put into 3 games and Guides worth every penny.

As Javier said earlier, with DA2 the marketers and devs were saying the same things. With ME3, the devs have told us repeatedly and emphatically that decisions will be resolved. They have told us that they have a whole matrix of decisions that they need to evolve. 

The rainman comment was simply that players would be brought up to speed on the situation - that they're not expecting us to remember everything from a game we played several years back. Most of us here on BSN have probably played ME1 and ME2 THIS year so its not a big deal for us but for the average player, they will need to have their memories refreshed, absolutely.

Modifié par Whatever666343431431654324, 10 août 2011 - 07:44 .

[SalsaDMA]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

The rainman comment was simply that players would be brought up to speed on the situation - that they're not expecting us to remember everything from a game we played several years back. Most of us here on BSN have probably played ME1 and ME2 THIS year so its not a big deal for us but for the average player, they will need to have their memories refreshed, absolutely.

That's silly.

Can you really with a straigth face say that you wouldn't be insulted if I called you mentally challenged for remembering something that you did in a videogame?

I sure would, and do feel insulted by Silvermans comment.

The fact that he makes a comment that converts to that he thinks people need to be autistic to remember stuff they did in a videogame is just too much.

[Whatever42]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

The rainman comment was simply that players would be brought up to speed on the situation - that they're not expecting us to remember everything from a game we played several years back. Most of us here on BSN have probably played ME1 and ME2 THIS year so its not a big deal for us but for the average player, they will need to have their memories refreshed, absolutely.

That's silly.

Can you really with a straigth face say that you wouldn't be insulted if I called you mentally challenged for remembering something that you did in a videogame?

I sure would, and do feel insulted by Silvermans comment.

The fact that he makes a comment that converts to that he thinks people need to be autistic to remember stuff they did in a videogame is just too much.

Rainman had extraordinary recall. He was an idiot savant, not an idiot. Being autistic, btw, doesn't mean that you're a savant. If you can recall decisions from a video game you last played going on 5 years ago with perfect recall, I would say that you have different wiring than most of us, yes.

You're just looking for a reason to be insulted, aren't you?

Modifié par Whatever666343431431654324, 10 août 2011 - 08:13 .

[Badpie]

No insults please.

And I was miffed at the rainman comment too. It sounded to me like he was dismissing remembrance of events as being strange or abnormal or even obsessive. And sure, some people picked up ME five years ago and haven't played it since, but the majority have replayed or will replay before ME3 comes out. We remember what we did.

[MiniMosher]

''dear humanity, we regret being alien bastards, we regret coming to earth, and we most definately regret that the corps just blew up out raggity ass fleet OO RAH''

well I can remember that quote from 2004 on the last generation of consoles, so I dont know what casey is on about, I agree with what you said OP, I hope its just a marketing ploy, not something thats going to ruin ME3, especially when imported choices is what mass effect was made for!

''200 degrees more and I might start to get uncomfortable, how are you mammals doing?''
oh there goes another one lol

[Veex]

Badpie wrote...

And sure, some people picked up ME five years ago and haven't played it since, but the majority have replayed or will replay before ME3 comes out. We remember what we did.

Do you have anything to substantiate this claim, or is it just an assumption? I think you'd be surprised at the amount of times games are started and never finished, or started and only finished once. A specfic quote about Dragon Age from BioWare comes to mind, I'll see if I can't find it.