Gief trial key, plox
2009-10-25
I want to try Fallen Earth (feel free not to visit that link: it's going to ask you to give your DoB so I suspect it would like to be NSFW, and to be honest I doubt it's worth the hassle one way or another).
I'm unlikely to buy it unseen. The reviews aren't good, I don't know anyone there, and it's mostly not my kind of game. Partly I'm holding out a glimmer of hope that it'll be a hidden gem, but actually let's face it, I want to go there and see what I think is wrong and what could have been done differently. (And that's why there is a possibility of me buying it: after all, I have books on game design that cost more)
For a while, there was no free trial. Then, as I just found out, there was a trial key giveaway on various industry news sites and the like, which have given out a bunch of keys already and appear to have none left for me.
What's with that? I mean, my ulterior motives notwithstanding, how many potential players are actually going to want to commit money to a game - especially one with bad press - without a chance to play it? One of the things that WoW does right (besides delivering quality product with relatively few critical bugs) is throw around trials and referral promotions like there's no tomorrow (and let's face it, if the game can't attract subscribers, there may not be a tomorrow).
The only other game I've noticed being quite as shady as Fallen Earth in this respect (read: the only one lacking free trial when I wanted to play enough to look for one) was Age of Conan. I'm still on the mailing list for trial offers there. AoC is by this stage essentially a failed game*, and I fear they're withholding free trial because they don't expect me to stay either way and by making me buy the game they at least get a box sale before I scarper. Well, they don't, because I'm not bothering to look at it until I find a free trial, probably.
Fallen Earth isn't dead though (as far as I know): it's still pretty new and it needs to be building player base, getting people to try the game and make their decision. If the cash commitment is required before they get that far, fewer people will try, and those you lose at that stage will be embittered against the developer and publisher in future. I'm not a marketing person, but I understand a few fundamentals about selling these things: Your advertising/word-of-mouth/whatever needs to get people to your site, your site needs to get them into the game, the game needs to get them to stay.
I've seen some pretty prominent advertising, but making new arrivals pay to try the game will turn lots away. (From what I hear, I suspect the game might have trouble converting new arrivals to long-term players, but that's another dicussion.) ((Thinking about it, I was irritated by the advertising, which included both a masturbation joke and the claim that players of fantasy MMOs needed to grow up, but at least it got me thinking about the game.))
* I don't know any of the figures, but in my eyes AoC was a competitor to WoW, something it's clearly not managing. It probably has subscriber numbers that would be quite respectable and a decent living for a smaller team on something specialised (see EVE, Puzzle Pirates, et al) but it was a AAA attempt and probably isn't making back that investment.
Fallen Earth is not a WoW competitor: it's niche enough that it could keep a profitable cult following provided the team don't overreach. And provided it can actually get its act together and let the potential cultists try the damn thing!
I'm unlikely to buy it unseen. The reviews aren't good, I don't know anyone there, and it's mostly not my kind of game. Partly I'm holding out a glimmer of hope that it'll be a hidden gem, but actually let's face it, I want to go there and see what I think is wrong and what could have been done differently. (And that's why there is a possibility of me buying it: after all, I have books on game design that cost more)
For a while, there was no free trial. Then, as I just found out, there was a trial key giveaway on various industry news sites and the like, which have given out a bunch of keys already and appear to have none left for me.
What's with that? I mean, my ulterior motives notwithstanding, how many potential players are actually going to want to commit money to a game - especially one with bad press - without a chance to play it? One of the things that WoW does right (besides delivering quality product with relatively few critical bugs) is throw around trials and referral promotions like there's no tomorrow (and let's face it, if the game can't attract subscribers, there may not be a tomorrow).
The only other game I've noticed being quite as shady as Fallen Earth in this respect (read: the only one lacking free trial when I wanted to play enough to look for one) was Age of Conan. I'm still on the mailing list for trial offers there. AoC is by this stage essentially a failed game*, and I fear they're withholding free trial because they don't expect me to stay either way and by making me buy the game they at least get a box sale before I scarper. Well, they don't, because I'm not bothering to look at it until I find a free trial, probably.
Fallen Earth isn't dead though (as far as I know): it's still pretty new and it needs to be building player base, getting people to try the game and make their decision. If the cash commitment is required before they get that far, fewer people will try, and those you lose at that stage will be embittered against the developer and publisher in future. I'm not a marketing person, but I understand a few fundamentals about selling these things: Your advertising/word-of-mouth/whatever needs to get people to your site, your site needs to get them into the game, the game needs to get them to stay.
I've seen some pretty prominent advertising, but making new arrivals pay to try the game will turn lots away. (From what I hear, I suspect the game might have trouble converting new arrivals to long-term players, but that's another dicussion.) ((Thinking about it, I was irritated by the advertising, which included both a masturbation joke and the claim that players of fantasy MMOs needed to grow up, but at least it got me thinking about the game.))
* I don't know any of the figures, but in my eyes AoC was a competitor to WoW, something it's clearly not managing. It probably has subscriber numbers that would be quite respectable and a decent living for a smaller team on something specialised (see EVE, Puzzle Pirates, et al) but it was a AAA attempt and probably isn't making back that investment.
Fallen Earth is not a WoW competitor: it's niche enough that it could keep a profitable cult following provided the team don't overreach. And provided it can actually get its act together and let the potential cultists try the damn thing!
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