Dragon Greg
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Posted - 2010.08.27 15:39:00 -
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Edited by: Dragon Greg on 27/08/2010 15:46:06
 Originally by: Nobzy
You ppl seem to be forgetting that CCP are trying to sell a product here.
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In short, cool rendered lying trailers sell better than less flashy actual in-game trailers. I don't see why they should take the less profitable choice because you want, unless you unsubscribe in the thousands because of it.
If EVE were a box of chocolates in the supermarket you'd be right, unfortunately it is not a box of chocolates. Sure, the immersion in EVE is like a box of chocolates, but that is the key here: EVE is an immersive product.
As such, it is a damn dangerous road to walk to create or further a divide between your presentation and the realities experienced in the product immersion. If the divide becomes too big or becomes a structural trend, you segregate your presentation and perception (and Hilmar after all says that perception is reality) from the immersion the customer experiences. Which pretty much comes down to the challenge of acquisition and retention.
Shiny can and will attract, but it does not keep. In fact, too much shiny that is not like the immersion drives away. It's an interesting observation that keeps coming back in this industry in research ongoing over a decade and longer.
Sometimes in business development you have to push the shiny, in order to gain new ground. Tyrannis is a good example of this, visible in the trailer. The Tyrannis trailer was absolutely brilliant in this regard, delivering a message and a sentiment tailored to the aggregated target perspectives of new customer niches. Hence also why existing customers said "wait a second, that is bull****, it's nothing like that trailer". Which was true, but mostly because CCP cut the mark short with Tyrannis and the delivery of Planetary Interaction in its arguably failed format of product niche. On which note it is interesting to observe, the PI delivered newbies my wife manages in a few corps, are already starting to fade away, after having done the Facebook game of PI and well, moving back to other Facebook leisure type of games. Outside of EVE.
Still, such a shiny push is something you don't do too often, and especially not in a style of one after the other. Doing that results in to further forms of segregation, most notably you start to push awareness trends among existing and prospect customer groups where your market simply stops taking your message seriously - because the awareness of the divide between "marketing", "message" and "perception reality" becomes not just huge, but also a structural phenomenon.
Keep in mind here that EVE is an example of immersive market development, independant of it being an MMO. There is quite an interesting line between acquisition for the short term gain, versus stable and sustainable growth through retention for the long term gain. EVE is CCP's baby, as they say, it seems to me you'd want the kid to grow up, burn the school, cause a few teen pregnancies and have a life. Instead of just throwing it out on the street to foster care by the time it gets out of kindergarten.
So, yes, CCP is here to sell a product. But they are here to do something much more profound then just that, because of their ideas behind the product, and what the product entails and how it works. CCP is here to sell you a life, a job, another universe entirely.
Rendered shiny looks cool, but is counterproductive to sustainable growth for that. Remember how EVE had its hardest growth patterns, in its hardest and most unstable times: word of mouth. Those figures still dwarf any "shiny" from later years.
And it is interesting to see, how in the myriad of communities and sites out there, the references to player created content / events / movies are far more plentiful then the actual EVE trailers. Clear Skies 1 and 2 are - for example - incredibly HUGE acquisition AND retention elements to CCP. Remarkable isn't it. |