Sleazy MMO Marketing – A Growing, Disturbing Trend
Perhaps because I make games and because I believe so strongly in the importance of community in MMOs, I like to think that my industry treats its customers better than other industries. Apparently I am not just wrong, but getting more wrong by the day.
Some examples:
World of Warcraft: They have bragged for years about their gazillions of customers (11.5 million according to the most recent boast I have seen). Turns out not all customers are created equal, and the 6-8 million customers from Asia include “hyper casual” customers with minutes or hours of total gameplay. Asia accounts for just 6 percent of WoW revenues. This it not outright lying, but is definitely deceptive. That would be like Blizzard counting people in the west who are using trial accounts. Actually, who knows… maybe they are.
Aggressive Advertising from Evony – Racy, Raunchy, Sexy, Spammy
Evony Spam: Forget shills… Evony dispatched staff to spam blogs telling people to play Evony. I’m talking “Buy Viagra” type spam.
Evony – Sex Sells…. RTSes?: The web site Coding Horror was one of the most notable to document this. Over time, Evony web ads evolved from this:
To this:
That’s no lie. That is not parody. They actually used the above ad to try and get people to play the online RTS Evony.
City of Heroes, #1: For years they have been using the “Free Content Expansion” label for their “issues.” When people pay $15 a month, new content is not free. MMO companies are cagey with their info, but I have read estimates that the per player cost for bandwidth, hardware, etc. is less than 25 cents a month. So when you come out with a pittance of new content once every 8-12 months, calling it free is just dishonest and sleazy.
City of Heroes, #2: As incredibly content light as this game is, at least every 6 months or so they would release a few more costume options. No longer! Now you pay extra for those via microtransactions/booster packs. The devs lie and say the creation of these booster packs does not pull any staff off creation of “other content” for the game, but come on… who are they kidding? CoH still has less content than most MMOs have at RELEASE. But as we will see from Champions Online, the former Cryptic employees running CoH are mere padawans when it comes to sleaze and ripping off their customers.
Champions Online, #1 – Cryptic sent staffers to the City of Heroes forums to try and steal top players and guilds via PMs. They sought to lure them away with closed beta invites and other perks for them and their guilds. As sleazy as this is, what makes it worse is the fact that everyone still working on CoH used to work for Cryptic. Cryptic sold CoH to NCSoft, and 10 or so people stayed on staff. So the slimeballs at Cryptic were doing this to their former co-workers – people they weated and salved together with for 5+ years to make CoH. Classy.
Champions Online, #2: Subscriptions + Microtransactions for content? Uh, no. This is not technically a marketing issue, but its still pretty skeezy. Pick a business model and stick to it. Don’t engage in this kind of double dipping. But we’ll see in the next 2 examples that these guys take money grubbing to new levels.
Champions Online, #3: Selling lifetime subscriptions, with an expiration date on the offer BEFORE the game even comes out. Are you kidding me? You want people to buy a lifetime subscription before they can even play the game? What are you afraid of? And giving away Star Trek Online beta keys as part of the incentive? Are you this desperate?
Champions Online, #4: Charging money for open beta. Yes, that’s right. Cryptic announced open beta, but when you try to sign up for it the only way to participate is if you have a PAID subscription to Fileplanet. There can be little doubt that Cryptic is getting a kickback for this little deal. Despicable.
Those are a few off the top of my head. What do you think of them? Do you all know of some other gems?
While there definitely is some sleaze there, especially with the self-parodying Evony ads, I’m hesitant to tar everything with that brush.
CoH’s expansions are “free” if you compare it to other games where you pay subscription + box sales for expansions. Hell, WoW doesn’t even give you a free month with the purchase of an expansion like EQ1 did, and the price for the latest expansion is the same as it was when it was released last year. I think WoW’s definitely more guilty of abusing pricing here than CoH. (On a related note, it is interesting how players simply don’t count the initial or expansion box prices into how much a game costs. Meridian 59 released all expansions for free to subscribers, but people only look at the base monthly cost in comparison.)
As for Cryptic “stealing” players from CoH for Champions Online, I find it really hard to get worked up about this. Blizzard “stole” (but most say “recruited”) players and guilds from EQ1 to populate their early testing, and a lot of people think this gave them a huge advantage in building their playerbase. So, why is it suddenly in poor taste when Cryptic does it? Because they got caught?
As for Champions Online selling a lifetime subscription, they’re not the first to do it like that. As another blogger pointed out, selling the lifetime subscription before launch is pretty much the same deal that LotRO offered back in the day, and people loved that. Attitudes have changed, obviously.
Finally, yeah, Fileplanet is an exclusive source of a lot of stuff. They probably don’t get kickbacks, but they got their multi-gigabyte client hosted for free, I’m sure. That can save a lot of bandwidth. Sucks for those of us who don’t want to pony up the extra money a month to download games, but that’s nothing new, sadly.
Not to say that the game industry is sunshine and light, because there are a lot of sleazy things going on all the time. I’m just not sure everything you’ve pointed out qualifies, in my opinion.
It is not just the sleaze. There is the very real possibilty that Evony is Malware: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/16/is-evony-malware/
I do find this slightly ironic after the discussion on cleavage not too long ago.
Well, you gotta work that cleavage into the game in a logical fashion.
Boobs are great, but they gotta have SOME reasonable connection to the game.
Brian:
If the CoH issues were actually like an expansion, sure. But they aren’t. They are patches. They actually did charge money for the City of Villains expansion, and they will be charging for the “Going Rogue” expansion. After 5 years and 16 “free issues”, the game still has less content than many MMOs at release – including Free to Play MMOs like Runes of Magic, for example.
The reason I felt the stealing players by spamming their own official forums was sleazy was: 1) because they used CoH’s forums to do it and 2) These guys used to work together. And I don’t just mean as random, happenstance co-workers at some other company. These exact same people slaved side by side on the same game. Cryptic just chose to sell off CoH to NCSoft, and so some of the staff stayed on. I think that adds a little extra kick in the shorts.
Lifetime subs: I personally feel these are a TERRIBLY idea in general. I think giving a developer LESS incentive to maintain their game is a bad thing. But selling them before the game is out? That’s bad. If LOTRO did it also, then shame on them.
While you did have to have pre-ordered LoTRO to get a lifetime sub [at the reduced $200 rate...anyone can get one for $300 to this day...and there are various ways to still get one for $200], you did not have to commit to it before the game launched. If you were in the open beta, with the free month you had six weeks to play LoTRO before you had to force over a dime for subscription fees. Even then, you were free to sub at a reduced rate ($10 per month) and then switch to a lifetime sub at $200 at any time after that. I actually played the game for three months before I was confident enough in it to go lifer. The way the lifetime deal was structured in LoTRO, there was absolutely no pressure to buy it until you had had a chance to thoroughly experience the game. Very different can of worms from the CO deal.
Thanks for those details Yeebo. I seemed to recall that LotRO’s lifetime sub offer had a number of options to it, and that you could play the game a while before deciding.
Promotional deals are as old as the oldest profession. They force people into a difficult choice, for sure, but I’d be hesitant to call them sleaze.
And some of those deals are basically too-good-to-offer-to-everyone. Note the LOTRO lifetime sub wasn’t offered to everyone originally, just the beta testers. It was a “thank you” deal that was popular enough to re-use it for further promotions.
There’s a wee bit of an assumption here that they’re trying to rip you off and despite the group-think going around on this stuff, I think it lacks common sense.
For instance, I’m the first to complain about double-dipping and getting nickled and dimed to death, but it should be noted that Cryptic were honest enough to post their internal guidelines for microtransactions and that it’s all over cosmetic stuff or items available in-game anyway.
On the paying for beta I have to say there have been tons. Tons and tons of opportunities for anyone interested in Champions Online (or most betas really, to generalize) by signing up on this site or that. Cryptic has mentioned they have more people from the closed beta prior to the addition of the open beta players. Yes, I think the cross-promotion with Fileplanet sucks and I wish companies would stop going that route, but it’s more of a convenience thing for them.
Try to look at it in their shoes. They’re busy trying to get their game running and managing a big release, which is different from the logistics of managing players into a beta. Why create infrastructure for a temporary situation when this other company handles that all the time? That’s how Fileplanet gets involved. There’s no nefarious underhanded meetings in the dark about it, it’s just letting Fileplanet take in some subscriber money in exchange for handling the beta distribution. What I wish MMO devs would consider tho is how often Fileplanet botches this stuff.
But hey, common sense isn’t as fun as conspiracy theories.
Muckbeast wrote:
After 5 years and 16 “free issues”, the game still has less content than many MMOs at release….
To me, CoH was a game that didn’t require a lot of content. It was all about building an interesting superhero and beating thugs up. Would you be happier if they had done the EQ system and cranked out a $30 expansion ever 6 months after the first year? I’d be much more upset about the microtransaction costumes if I played, since that’s where the “real content” should go, IMNSHO.
…because [Cryptic] used CoH’s forums to [contact people].
Well, how do you think Blizzard developers contacted EQ1 players? Telepathy? Hired hovercrafts to visit players’ houses after doing Google searches on character names? They used the game at some point to establish contact. Again, I don’t see a significant difference in this case between what Cryptic did and what Blizzard did. It may seem inept for marketing and a bit desperate for attention, but sleazy?
Cryptic just chose to sell off CoH to NCSoft, and so some of the staff stayed on.
I suspect it’s a bit more complex than Cryptic “just” deciding to sell off the game. From what I understand, Cryptic got the opportunity to work on a Marvel-themed game (which became Champions Online when the license was yanked); however, part of the restriction for the Marvel license is that they couldn’t run a competing game. Assuming nobody was forced out, the team leaving Cryptic had to know that they were going to be competing against the upcoming project sometime in the future. I don’t think anyone was taken by surprise here when Cryptic was working on a new MMO.
I guess I see forum recruiting like marketing street teams. It may seem more noble to have a billboard influence people to buy a product, but having someone talk up a product works a lot better.
This whole argument like saying that a former waitress of a bar can’t go back into the bar on a brewer’s payroll to tell people to drink a specific brand of beer. Maybe the bar doesn’t like it because people may not buy the high-margin food if they fill up on beer, but to call it sleazy seems excessive.
Let people judge the games on their own merits and choose which game they prefer.
Lifetime subs: I personally feel these are a TERRIBLY idea in general.
Personally, I agree. I paid $100 for a year of LotRO and consider it a good deal. Spending an extra $100-200 when I’m not sure I’ll want to play the game for another year or two (plus having to buy expansions) doesn’t seem smart to me.
From a business point of view, they’re brilliant. A friend of mine told a story about how Reader’s Digest gave away lifetime subscriptions when they were first coming out. A relative had gotten an infant relative a lifetime subscription. When that relative encountered a Reader’s Digest manager later, they chuckled at getting such a great deal, but the manager thanked him! Getting that large chunk of money at the beginning allowed the company to grow faster at the beginning.
Some things to think about.
CoH was Yet Another Warhouse Mission. So yes, I would have gladly paid more for some variety.
> Well, how do you think Blizzard developers contacted
> EQ1 players?
Blizzard’s employees didn’t work with EQ1’s employees for 2-4+ years to make EQ1, then split off and do something sleazy to try and gank players from their former co-worker’s game. I think that’s a HUGE difference.
Backstabbing people you worked and sweated with is just low. Super low. Going onto another company’s forums to recruit is pretty slimy. You are using system resources THEY pay for to recruit. The street team analogy would only apply if you were breaking into the premises of someone else’s business and trying to gank their customers.
The barmaid analogy doesn’t really work either, since that the booze is at a totally different place on the vertical commerce chain. Also, the restaurant can deny her access if they want. At least they have a choice.
I also don’t see how the Reader’s Digest compares to an MMO. Most MMOs inherently have a lifespan of a few years. A good magazine goes on for decades. Also, most of the money in a magazine is from the advertisers anyway.
For instance, I’m the first to complain about double-dipping and getting nickled and dimed to death, but it should be noted that Cryptic were honest enough to post their internal guidelines for microtransactions and that it’s all over cosmetic stuff or items available in-game anyway.
Do you really believe that? LOL. Further, they slipped in a “but if it does have an in game effect, you’ll be able to get it in game.” Because a 40 man raid with a 1% drop chance counts as “able to get in game”, right? Sorry, its double dipping. Pick a business model. Don’t be greedy and try to use two.
Try to look at it in their shoes. They’re busy trying to get their game running and managing a big release, which is different from the logistics of managing players into a beta. Why create infrastructure for a temporary situation when this other company handles that all the time?
What extra infrastructure is needed? They already have the infrastructure for creating accounts. It actually takes MORE infrastructure to process the open beta keys.
And further, if that’s the way you want to do it, fine. Just don’t lie about it. Don’t call it OPEN BETA if it isn’t open. This is a closed beta. That’s totally fine. No company has to have an open beta. But don’t say its OPEN, and then when someone wastes a couple hours downloading your client, *THEN* say “oh yeah, you can only use that download after you pre-order or buy a fileplanet subscription.”
That’s the kind of typical dishonesty from Cryptic that really disgusts me about them.
Here’s another thing: You don’t see non-MMO developers having to resort to such tactics. That’s pretty good evidence that it is not necessary.
The MMO industry hit the jackpot too fast and too early. Everyone see’s WoW’s $1 billion a year and it has turned them into insanely greedy piranhas that would eat their own mother for a 2% increase in subscribers. That attitude is, in the long run, bad business – not just for individual games, but for the whole industry.
There are plenty of legitimate, non-sleazy ways to get news out there about your game.
You don’t have to lie about your subscriber numbers and bloat them by 150%.
You don’t have to lie about customer feedback, and tell the media that all your players who left for game X have already returned (something Blizzard said about Warhammer within the first month of its release, which was a blatant lie. How in the HELL could they possibly know that. Ridiculous.)
What is next? Copy the people who run the pirate WoW servers, and offer people leveled up characters on your new MMO if they will give you their WoW account?
We do not need that level of sleaze in our industry. We will be more successful without it, and also be able to respect ourselves in the morning.
Add Fallen Earth to the list…
Both Fallen Earth and CO are engaging in slimy, deceptive marketing by saying they have an open beta going right now. They don’t. They have a closed beta. To participate in the current closed beta, you must either be a pre-order customer or a PAID subscriber to Fileplanet (you gotta believe Fileplanet is giving them a kickback).
This new trend needs to be strangled in the crib. This crap Fileplanet is trying to do, marketing their sucktastic subscription as “access to the hottest betas” is reminiscent of craptacular multiplayer from Gamespy. It sucked then and it sucks now.
Awesome. Everyone agrees with me.
Any other examples of deceptive or sleazy marketing from the MMO industry?
The whole beta thing is a scam at this point. It hasn’t been for testing purposes in years, it’s just marketing now. Very few betas are truly free at this point. Either you subscribe to File Planet, or you preorder the game. As bad as File Planet is, preordering the game for beta access is even worse. People need to learn some patience and stop paying for this crap.
Muckbeast wrote:
Blizzard’s employees didn’t work with EQ1’s employees for 2-4+ years to make EQ1….
Are you sure Blizzard didn’t hire any EQ1 developers?
But, let’s say it had been another company with a superhero themed game (like SOE’s DC Universe Online) that “spammed” the forums; would that have been okay? If so, it just seems like an arbitrary barrier here, especially given the relative lack of superhero themed games out there. Reaching out to existing fans seems like the obvious thing to do here.
As I mentioned previously, the people who left Cryptic to go to NCSoft to continue working on City of Heroes almost certainly knew why Cryptic was selling the game off. They knew a competing game was coming out, so I don’t think there were many surprises here.
The street team analogy would only apply if you were breaking into the premises of someone else’s business and trying to gank their customers.
Do customers drop good loot?
Actually, it’s more like passing out fliers for a competitor in front of a restaurant or store. Do you consider that sleazy? I don’t. If I like a place, I’ll ignore the flier or maybe try it sometime later. If I don’t like the place, then it was already at risk in losing me as a customer.
Or, maybe I could say it’s like having booth babes go around handing out fliers at a game convention, and they “happen” to spend a lot of time near a competitor’s booth. In the game industry, especially one as small as the MMO segment, most people have worked with many other people in different companies. Is this sleazy to you, too? (I mean, besides the obvious sleaze of treating women like sex objects. *sigh*)
I also don’t see how the Reader’s Digest compares to an MMO.
The comparison was for a “cheaper” up-front fee vs. a regular recurring fee. From a business point of view, getting less money sooner is worth it in some situations, especially just starting out.
You don’t see non-MMO developers having to resort to such tactics.
As I said, at game conferences it’s pretty common to see people try to “out-spectacle” each other and get people to visit their booth instead of a competitor. Booth babes are there for a reason.
Sadly, even outside the game industry, you’re wrong, and that’s the blatantly illegal side. It’s quite common to try to acquire mailing lists of people with similar interests, which is a very common advertising technique. The modern equivalent is hitting up people on a related message board. The difference is you work in MMOs, so you’ve heard more about this particular examples than others.
Fileplanet is now giving out keys to everyone for the Champions Online Beta, no subscription or fees required.
> Are you sure Blizzard didn’t hire any EQ1 developers?
That’s hardly the same as what happened here and you know it, Brian.
The CoX staff split off directly from Cryptic when CoX was sold to NCSoft. Positron was the #2 guy under Statesmen. These were entire staffs that worked together for years. Then one set used the system resources and web site of the other to try and steal customers.
If it had been DCUO it would still be lame and classless, but not backstabbing.
> Actually, it’s more like passing out fliers for a competitor
> in front of a restaurant or store.
That would be like PMing people on a fan site.
This was like passing out fliers *INSIDE* the restaurant or bar. That’s the sort of thing that gets you beat to a pulp in real life.
> As I said, at game conferences it’s pretty common to see people
> try to “out-spectacle” each other and get people to visit their
> booth instead of a competitor.
That’s the whole spectacle of a game convention. That’s an entirely different thing than going on to someone else’s (virtual) property in order to do direct harm to their business for your own benefit.
Not only is this slimy, but its not even necessary. I highly doubt the people PMed didn’t already know about CO. There were more people asking for beta access than received it. The sole purpose of this maneuver was to try and hurt CoX by taking away as many “good” players as possible. And this was done when CO wasn’t even open, so this was purely a negative move.
> The modern equivalent is hitting up people on a related message board.
Which is totally fine and different than what CO did. The went onto CoX’s property.
We don’t have to behave like robber barons in order to attract new customers. I don’t think those types of tactics are terribly effective on top of the fact that they are sleazy.
One of the main reasons I am even making an issue of this is to draw attention to these tactics and thereby discourage their use.
ROG: Thanks. A CO dev actually sent me a beta key as well.
[...] management and leadership? Who is making bad decisions like this one (or like the ones in my sleazy marketing post)? Is it Bill Roper? He is now the “Design Director” and Executive Producer of [...]
More fail from Evony.
http://brokentoys.org/2009/08/25/play-now-my-lawyer/
and:
http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/08/25/evony-want-to-sue-me-for-telling-the-truth/
Been playing games since the days of pac-man. Played several top-name MMO’s, worked in the game industry myself. Just want to say how I agree with this article – and am really saddened by it.
Be prepared for the online gaming world to sink farther into Vegas-style scumminess. Microtransactions to appeal to the weak-willed now taking a great foothold (you could see the greed seething out of their grinning faces at the last E3…). There is nothing to stop them, their TOS’s are a complete joke…
I never thought I’d do it, but I’m actually quitting online games – permanently.