Let's Talk About Marketing...February

AAAAHHHHH!

Just thanks for the effort to maintain some communication, Mike. I can't give you very much feedback because I don't understand a thing about this topic, but I think it is important to recognize your great disposition to talk with your players. GW2 needs more of this.

PoF story stuff AND a mystery community celebration? I certainly plan to watch!

Is Anet going to watch the GVG tournament. do more living story episode releases soon, or do Valentines stuff for a week? ( Like release love struck weapon skins for a while from the bl skin merchant?) Or do sales for the week so people can buy their friends things on sale in the gem store? Or is it something else?

@Endelon.1042 said:AAAAHHHHH!

@Mike Silbowitz.1827 said:Why you gotta play me like that @Endelon.1042? ;-)

But this is AAAAHHHHmazing, isn't it? :)

Ok, my curiosity is officially getting the better of me now. LOL

I want every single sentient being in existence who can afford a system capable of running any games in the Guild Wars franchise to do everything that can be done in all of them.

How can we achieve that?

Thanks for the heads-up and continuing with the communication, Mike! Guild Chats are always fun with the developer insight that they offer. I remember you mentioning a while ago to keep an eye out on February, so I'm curious to see what you've all cooked up now that said time approaches. :)

This thread might not be the best place for the following, but I thought I'd add a bit of my experience as a consumer with a particular trailer and show what I, as an individual, feel works for promotional material since you want to hear player feedback. While I expect your team's take to be different than the older material I describe below, perhaps my analysis will be of some use in understanding the mindset of at least one consumer's who felt the whole AAAAHHH promo went way over his head.

One of my favorite promotional videos from GW2 era has been the

which had a thought-provoking opening with intriguing and somber yet anticipatory narration (aided by the music cue and clever writing with the double foreshadowing of both the revenant class and the events of the story itself with the narrator's concluding phrase "The hero's journey is to become legend"), leading to the reveal of the new jungle region of the world (selling the expansion environments) with the first money shot of a proto-version of the notable golden city of Tarir with its mysterious inhabitants, followed by the fluent narrative of showing two groups of players in peril with new enemy types and the surprising reveal of gliding (promoting an important HoT gameplay mechanic) saving one group from an untimely demise in a well-put-together shot. This is then continued by showing off the new revenant class as well as the elite specializations for some classes while also giving a taste of the other expansion selling points (the three biomes of the maps, challenging group content, new wvw borderland etc. with exciting shots of each) and ultimately ending with another money shot of franchise mascot Rytlock channeling the revenant's herald elite spec's Legendary Dragon Stance which naturally leads to the reveal of the expansion logo depicting a stylized Mordremoth (main antagonist of the expansion) and the name of the expansion, capped by fitting music cues that have been playing throughout the trailer.

While the aforementioned trailer works really well to build hype up and get people intrigued with HoT's offerings, my discussions with friends and family who had no idea of what GW2 was showed me some of the areas that otherwise nice trailer was lacking. There's hardly any context for who the talking and walking cat-person is, where is he, what is he doing and why the narrative the trailer is building up should matter to someone new to the franchise. While the mystery narration at the beginning helps set up the anticipation and intrigue to keep the potential interested consumer watching, it would've benefited from a kind of "newbie"-friendly explanation of the story. Perhaps combine the kind of PoF and Daybreak trailer plot stuff by explaining the stakes or the overall context while also making sure the explanation isn't solely aimed at those who're already familiar with GW2 plot (unlike the PoF and Daybreak or even HoT stuff which, while nice to a veteran like me, only leave new people totally confused about what Tyria's story is about and why something called sylvari belonging to the dragon is a big deal, or why the appearance of some random armored Balthazar dude who's also called a god for some reason is earth-shattering as an event).

The HoT trailer using gameplay mechanics and expansion features as part of its narrative (gliding away from new enemy types, using the new region as backdrop for exciting events while introducing the concept of biomes, elite specs, and other features) works really well, and we did see a bit of this with the use of mounts in PoF promotion although it would've worked better to weave them into the PoF trailer's narrative better. Maybe the player is about to be overwhelmed by the new Forged/Awakened/etc. enemies only to see an ally or two come rushing in with the new mounts to save the day, and the group carries on their way through the beautiful, expansive desert (with a nice vista shot of the vastness of the new maps) to save the day (or other adventurers out there), to give an admittedly haphazard example of one potential narrative.

The dream trailer for an expansion or Living World episode would likely combine best elements from both HoT and PoF promotions into a coherent, exciting whole. Perhaps the dream trailer could begin with a brief lore explanation to set the scene for newcomers unfamiliar with the lore, then smoothly give a taste of what the plot of the expansion/episode is about while also using the HoT trailer method of sneakily introducing the new map(s), mechanic(s) (e.g. gliding, mounts, new mastery like the ones introduced in Living World episodes) and other selling points along the way. The WoW trailer method of explaining relevant lore in context of the trailer and then giving fascinating glimpses of other content coming with the expansion/episode could work for GW2 too unless there's a superior method that works even better.

So with Daybreak trailer (which did have that nice Kormir recap with relevant shots from PoF story and some new shots) we could've gotten not only the aforementioned stuff but also followed the HoT trailer formula of showing the additional stuff coming with it (Introducing a New Mastery Line: Crystal Guardian!, New Legendary Weapon: The Binding of Ipos!, New Fractal: Twilight Oasis!, New Raid: Hall of Chains! and other prominent and sellable features shipped with the release) to get folks excited even more when they realize the release offers so much more. The fractal and raid snippets in the trailer could perhaps briefly tease the lore/environment of said content, the fractal bit showing us glimpses of Joko commanding his Awakened army to crush the besieged village with players showcasing the "parkour" mechanics (which are specific to that fractal) above rooftops, and the raid bit showing us the oppressive environment of the Hall of Chains with panicked NPC chatter about "Him" coming to consume them all with the bit ending with the money shot of the shadowy, maybe deliberately obscured (for trailer hype) Dhuum himself sitting on his throne and uttering an ominous line from the raid like "YOU CANNOT VANQUISH DEATH ITSELF." as the camera spans to him from the raiders who approach him cautiously in that beautifully sinister and foggy Hall of Judgment he resides in. And before the viewer has realized that he or she has wet their pants from all those exciting shots of upcoming content that goes beyond their expectations, you deliver the coup de grace with a final boom! The trailer ends with Dhuum's eyes lighting up and the scene fading to white/black (or whatever works best) to reveal the Daybreak name (replace with subsequent episode/expansion name) and the release date (and how Living World is free if you log in when the episode is active, or in expansion's case that the base game is free to try), and the hype train would be choo-chooing away with new, excited passengers aboard spreading the gospel to all corners of the gaming interwebs. ;)

However, with that said, I understand that trailer time is limited by necessity (length, budget etc.) and there shouldn't be too much bloat to overwhelm a viewer, so it can admittedly be tricky to balance information dump with gameplay, but I feel there is a golden standard to follow once folks like you and your team crack it. The above is simply a way I, as a consumer, would build up a GW2 trailer to excite the masses but I of course don't have marketing data behind me to say whether this approach would actually work any better with people other than myself.

To conclude, for what it's worth, I really enjoyed those lengthy and professionally made promo videos about mounts, the new desert region, the new fractal, the new elite specs etc. that we got around PoF and/or Daybreak launch. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes seeing behind-the-scenes stuff explaining more about the features coming with this or that product (game, movie etc.), so those helped build up hype for me. However, if there was one (admittedly minor) flaw for me in those particular videos, it was the "talking heads syndrome" seen in so many documentaries. An interesting approach to solve this common dilemma was used in the "Waking Sleeping Beauty" documentary which never cut to talking heads and instead flashed the name of the current speaker on screen while keeping the viewer's focus on the content they wanted to see: in that documentary's case it was behind-the-scenes stuff on Disney Studios depicting the era the documentary was tackling. For GW2's use I think combining the PoF promo and Waking Sleeping Beauty approaches might work best: show us the developers' faces once per person so we see who's responsible for the content, and then never cut back to those same heads and let us focus on the new content or otherwise behind the scenes stuff (e.g. for raids this could've been the artists depicting Dhuum or Desmina's looks from concept to the final in-game iteration), and you'll be set.

If you had the time to read through all of this rambling, thanks. You wanted feedback, so I felt I should provide it, and hopefully you got something out of it. Keep up the good work with your team by your side, and know that many of us in the community appreciate your initiative and are glad to see not only you but also some of your team members engage us in discussions here and/or Reddit. Hugs from this corner of Tyria to yours! :)

Looking forward to it, and the next living story.

Also Mike, PLEASE I need more bank space!

Glad you guys are willing to talk about this with us.

I would like to take this opportunity yo say a few things, hopefully that's ok, I tried starting conversation on this in the hopes that it can help the game moving forward. Love this game a lot and right now, I feel like the game could use a bit more focused marketing to help get more people to experience the great world you guys built here.

One of the big things that could help is having trailers show us what we get to an extend, I feel like there is a bit of fear when making these considering there is not much that can get people hyped. With the last one for example we did not get much to go on and it was a damn shame, you gave us a gorgeous map that from my point of view you failed to show in that trailer. GW2 has these amazing monumental environments that possible players don't get to see because they are not in the trailers, any other mmo spoils some of the places if not most of them because showing a place makes people talk, gets people exited to explore that amazing new place, but when you get nothing but a very obscure or vague screenshot, hard to be hyped about it.

Another one is Twitch... now this I think is very relevant, being popular on twitch can make or break a game these days and I was always wondering why don't you guys sponsor some big mmo streamers to play your game at least when you get new LWS patches coming out, I actually asked large streamers and most of them have no idea GW2 has raids or challenging group content or that the game has defined class roles now and they seemed interested in it. I don't know what the logistics are for sponsoring streamers on twitch but it does not seem that hard to trow a few thousand $ at some streamers to create some buzz with a new patch, at least try it once, see if its worth it.

In any case I do hope to see trailers that show us a bit more so we can actually get hyped about something and start a conversation instead of starting a reddit thread saying how the last trailers has x number of seconds of new content.

Hi @"Mike Silbowitz.1827" ! Thanks for the heads up and seriously thanks for being such a good sport and keeping us updated! I want to ask, the title of your post says "Marketing" but the body of your post says you're previewing "how you're celebrating the community", so which is it? I hope I'm not coming off as rude but I am truly curious. I can speak for many of my friends when I say we know Anet Devs care about us in the community. What the game needs, what the community needs is marketing of the game!

You guys are trying to engage the community and that is awesome! But I have to say, you have a great game here... market that, promote the gameplay, the art, the beauty of the world. The BEST combat system in any MMO hands down! That is what will celebrate your fans! Show the world your game, not just what people say about it. PLEASE!!

Hello Mike,

I am someone that deals with a lot of players on a daily basis, and, to that extent affects "marketing" in some way - the first thing people read when they enter this website and Reddit is how strict and censored the forums are. Reddit equally has negative connotations but our forums are widely talked about for being so strict that criticisms are often deleted, you cannot talk about moderation issues and this type of behaviour from the staffing team spreads far and wide.

Nearly all hardcore players avoid the forums unless absolutely necessary, and then new players learn why the veterans don't access the forums - a better and less strict forum policy, a place where people meet to talk about the game, would ultimately help marketing.

That aside - taking some points from other games' release videos, they highlight and give hype to every new feature, much like you guys did with HoT - NEW CLASS, NEW ZONE, NEW BOSSES but PoF this time and the living worlds, lacked that grasp for new players. A lot of people in my guild feel "oh the new trailer is out" followed by "oh okay, I guess we'll wait for the new patch", there isn't really that much engagement for old and new players and often people end up spending the patch day doing other things because they don't feel they gain anything from the story due to lack of reveals (I'm sure other people have touched on this).

I look forward to watching this upcoming Guild Chat (the first time ever for me).

TL;DR:

• Forum policies drive people away, and the next "go-to" is Reddit; both equally as negative when talked about.
• Nearly all trailers after HoT lacked that ability to grasp people.

What's the point in engaging with you? The Marketing team already had a thread asking for feedback, received loads and loads of good advice, then ignored it all and continues to use those embarrassing, lousy "ads" all over Facebook and Twitter and who knows where else. You can say however many times you want that you're listening to the feedback but when nothing changes why should we continue to put in the effort to help you do your own job?

@Mike Silbowitz.1827 I can honestly say your excitement is infectious! Can't wait to see what you all came up with!!