ArenaNets Presence on Twitch

[Caldori.7251]

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Malchemist.1620 said:

@Redfeather.6401 said:Two of the games I play do twitch drops and whenever drops are enabled it is quite a boost to viewers and that gets streams noticed by people who don't know what the game is like.

Exactly :) thank you for this and I agree completely. More eyeballs on the game is the end goal and getting gw2 up there on top categories will only help <3

Yes, YOUR end game goal is more views, and the more popular a game is your viewership goes up. YOU benefit more directly from that. Views don’t mean paying customers, and I guarantee the trickledown from viewer to paying customer is negligible.

Meanwhile, the end goal of Anet and NC soft isn’t twitch eyeballs, it’s $$$ on their monthly financial reports. And that’s achieved by fixing the game, following through on years old words and promises, updating professions more frequently, balancing professions more frequently, not burning bridges with players, putting out substantial updates and Xpacs in more timely manners... Those are marketable, generate web words of mouth, and translate to $$$... and it’s those things that indirectly increase twitch views at the end of the day. Not the other way around.

there is a problem in your line of thinking though... while the dev team is making new content and the qa team is dealing with bugs what is the marketing team doing? how are they getting the word out about all the fantastic work that the devs are doing? when there is a really good balance patch that everyone really likes and it will bring people into the game as you say do they just send out an email blast that say ok GW2 is better come on in? how do you spread word of mouth? well i can tell you a pretty cost effective way to do it... pay a streamer in made up digital currency to do the work for you and then they get to make money as well. as illustrated in the 7 habits of highly effective people... the best deal is a Win-Win deal. arena net gets very cost effective advertising and the streamer gets followers. you would have the streamer have a harder time growing and arena net make all the money. this deal is good for arena net but takes way longer to happen and during that time arena net incurs an opportunity cost of not have a steady influx of users to supply capitol to fund the fixing and development that will make them more money.

Twitch is not the be all end all, and i barely use it myself but i can tell you i would rather give my money to an awesome dev team and a funny twitch/youtube content creator then have that ad money end up spent on google ad space.

[Malchemist.1620]

There are new players everywhere. I am not sure where you are coming from when you say there are not any in the game right now. Not only do I see new players out in the world, but they come into my chat, and others chats to ask questions and get build suggestions. Its a real thing and I also make an effort to raid new players that are streaming just to give them a welcome to the game, and support them and help them feel like they are one of us.

Yes I completely agree with the content creators bringing in new eyes. Especially youtube creators. It has a much larger discoverability and they can then find that persons live stream and get involved in their chat. Its something I see at least once or twice a night. Streamer then engages that person, welcomes them in and talks to them, you've basically helped solidify why they should try it out.

Then when they get in they have almost 9 years of content at their finger tips. Just because we are all veterans doesn't mean that just because we have very little to do, that they won't. They will see it like we did at first, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to dive into the content. :)

[Buran.3796]

@"Kuronca.4138" said:

Those big big channels are big because of the streamer not the game they are playing.If someone small will play and has a giveaway will be only his regular viewers, the rest of the world wouldnt know.

The problem with Gw2 is that the game doesnt have new players, for new people its not attractive, its an old 2012 game with not updated graphics. People can agree or disagree but that's the truth that a new player see.Postponing Steam release for the new expansion...bad idea, good for the already players but that wont increase the numbers of new players, the visibility of being in Steam and release the new expansion there, could attract many people.

Uploading videos to youtube is the best way to catch people and re direct them to a twitch channel as youtube videos many times are randomly recommended or associated to another mmo.

What its for sure is that Anet needs money to continue in the business and they need to invest on marketing, improve their engine and create something new if they want to grow as a company.

The most popular games in Twich have a thing in common: they all have high support, which means that the developers release a large amount of patches along the year, at a very fast pace. And is not a surprise, because most of the ones which fill the top 30 are competitive games, which require balancing and frequent changes to keep the things interesting. Yeah, exactly as GW2 (specially WvW/PvP). S/

By the way, you can't "improve the engine". Sure you can enhance the art (and they recent maps are beautiful, for sure) add some effects and polish the finish, but GW2 engine is a Direct X 9? with no multicore support and that will last forever, because changing that would require re-making the game from 0. Is the same as Bethesda which keeps running the same outdated Embryo Engine since forever just changing a bit the aesthetics because thet's the engine in which they made Oblivion and changing it would force them to re-learn how to program all their complex side-quest from 0. That's why most of RPG/MMO developers stay with the same engines for decades.

[Swagger.1459]

@Malchemist.1620

“ They have an income and that is why we get updates. Its why the game is still here. But you know how they get more done? Market more. Do more on twitch. Get more eyeballs to the game website and get more people to play.

Then and only then can they put the devs who are working on the current game and keeping us entertained to other areas, like alliances, or new pvp maps or changes that will bring the very thing you want.”

Sorry, no. That’s not reality.

You invest in, update, fix, and improve your product, then market your product, then collect extra money and repeat the process. It’s not throw tons of money at marketing an aging product with unaddressed major issues hoping you get enough money to invest in, update, fix, and improve your product.

You figure out why 9,000,000+ account holders don’t use your product anymore, not shovel money into the marketing abyss hoping to get a couple of players...

And Twitch and twitchers are not the marketing saviors of this game like you are making it out to be. You are failing to see the strength of reinvesting in a product and player retention. You are solely focused on marketing schemes involving throwing away money and time on twitch and twitchers thinking it’s some magic bullet of marketing for gw2. It’s not.

And there isn’t a magic bullet. It’s called reinvest in your product then market the product to generate buzz and positive word of mouth... That feeds your twitchers at the end of the day. It’s not the other way around.

Edit- And again for clarity.

The equation is not shovel money into marketing with hopes of getting enough money to update, improve, and fix your product.

You update, improve, and fix your product, then market those updates, improvements, and fixes to your product.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

There's only so much money in the Marketing budget.What should they stop doing to put more into Twitch, like Loot Drops?Stop giving Gems to Twitch and YouTube content creators for giveaways?
Stop advertising the Art Show on Twitch?
Stop supporting/advertising player-run events?Stop promotions/contests/give-aways?

Maybe, this time, the powers that be (could be NCSoft) will decide that this is a good idea; they haven't when it's been brought up in the past.

Good luck on the suggestion; at least, this time, there was some acknowledgement!

[Redfeather.6401]

So one of the games I play is doing a twitch drop campaign this weekend. If you watch participating streams for an hour total you get a crate per day. The amount of streamers they got for this game now is way more than usual. Way more. I think it really works.

[Nilkemia.8507]

Seems to me that ArenaNet has already been doing something along the lines of what the OP is suggesting, or has at least tried. If it was going to make a serious impact, it'd have done so by now.

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:There's only so much money in the Marketing budget.What should they stop doing to put more into Twitch, like Loot Drops?Stop giving Gems to Twitch and YouTube content creators for giveaways?
Stop advertising the Art Show on Twitch?
Stop supporting/advertising player-run events?Stop promotions/contests/give-aways?

More or less this...although, there are other problems with Twitch as well. After all, not too long ago, there was this, among other things. There's a reason "Twitch thot" is a term.

So, I know this'll make me seem like a bunghole, and I probably am being one.... but no. No, no, no. Let's try making the game better or fixing it up so people will come and stick around. They already tried Twitch. They do it on Youtube as well, at least the Living World trailers. Maybe they could try Odysee too?

[Malchemist.1620]

Thanks all for the feedback. This was just a suggestion. <3

[zealex.9410]

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Malchemist.1620 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Malchemist.1620 said:Twitch is a massive marketing tool that has a plethora of new customers to bring in. Content creators are also a huge way to bring those people in as they may have people watching them that dont play GW2. a common misconception of streamers is that people watch streams for the game, and while that is somewhat true, most people watch streamers for the streamer/content creator.

I think the one thing that it may have gotten lost in the post is that this isn't all about loot drops, but just getting eyeballs to look towards the prime loot screen is a huge thing on twitch. everyone sees loot there, like for instance I see loot all the time for games like GTA5, Fall Guys, indie games of all types and more. the more people see those notifications the more likely they are to click on the advertisement and redeem the prize you get from it.

It may also get older players who haven't logged into the game in awhile to come back to redeem the skin, and then see oh hey stuff has been added/changed maybe i should check that out.

as for loot drops, its a good way to bring in existing/new/incoming players to content creators that can find a community to join, have questions answered, and get referral links to the game if they decide to buy. I personally know a ton of people who look for streamers/content creators who are playing games they are looking into to watch how the game is in real time.

its a sound decision all around, no matter if some go to twitch or not. but with millions of eyes, you're bound to get a few to try the game out and thats the goal here. :)

Yes, it’s a massive market and GW2 ranks in the 200 viewership rank range. New players come and go all the time, with 10,000,000+ accounts created since launch, but with a fraction of that number for actual players and monthly concurrency numbers.

The devs already do stuff on twitch and some marketing campaign with free stuff won’t make this game, that’s been around for almost 10 years, more popular. And the devs have given out a bunch of free stuff over the years already, so more free stuff won’t do jack for the bottom line.

A more sound decision would have been to release xpacs more frequently and address some of the games very big shortcomings. And twitch is meaningless to that equation. Word of mouth, or in this case words on the web, carry more weight than free stuff on twitch.

Now don’t get me wrong, I spent many years and a lot of $ on this game, but twitch stuff carries far less meaning and weight compared to updates and improvements to the game, along with a few other really important areas that gamers really care about.

And out of curiosity, how long have you played gw2? Do you own the 2 xpacs? How much $ have you spent on this game?

Im a beta veteran who has played with no breaks in the game and have spent thousands on the game. Im scared to know that number honestly lol

I have both expacs and at max mastery. I've been here for awhile.

The end goal is to get more new players to try the game. And this is a smart way to do so.

Anet gives free stuff already and this is where we are at almost 10 years later, so why is it “a smart way to do so”?

GW2 has some great elements, but the reputation isn’t stellar in the mmo sphere, so how important is a free X compared to, let’s say, a substantial update?

Because half the time they are done through niche markets and the other half of the time they are region locked, twitch is massive, simple and accessible and it can work well for any game related marketing move.