Mike Silbowitz.1827

Thank you for this. The Manifesto is a great video that taps into the emotion and dedication of the ArenaNet Dev team. I would love to do an update to this. I also want to stress that ArenaNet...probably more then any company I've ever worked with, cares so much about there players...all players. We do make games as a business that we hope makes money but ArenaNet truly puts the players happiness as their number 1 goal above profit. It's a big reason I decided to come work here, leaving a job where I was very happy. It's an easy thing for me to write and hard to feel the sincerity in a post but I want this to be stressed as strongly as possible. ArenaNet is player first and I can promise specifically on the Marketing side that we are here. We are listening. When you guys say something it is noticed company wide. We strive to get it right and will continue to strive for excellence.

Thank you. I intend to because the majority of feedback had been so detailed, constructive and thoughtful. So many ideas came out of this that I plan on making a reality over the next year and I'm proud to say it all came from the GW2 community. :-)

I would go with "be glad that Arena.Net gets a bit more in touch with their players" My intention with this post is to have a direct communication with our players. I don't NEED you to tell me how to do my job...but I WANT to know what our fans think. If asking our fans about marketing is not a good idea I won't in the future, as I didn't when I worked at Square Enix or Activision Blizzard, but I saw value in what the GW2 community had to say...and luckily this lead to predominantly constructive feedback and communication.

Thank you for taking the time to put this together. The EVE video is a really great example. This thoughtful constructive feedback will be considered for this video as well as future assets. :-)

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I do think adding clarity around who the quotes are from will help. Great suggestion. You are right to believe that quotes are cherry picked and these absolutly were. What is nice about the GW2 community is the abundance of positive quotes we had to choose from. It’s amazing to see a gaming community that loves and supports as strongly as this community supports GW2, which is a big part of why we wanted to include your quotes AND your direct feedback on the trailer. Your constructive feedback will not only help us with the video but all of our assets moving forward. Keep it coming! P.S. - Only one of the quotes came from a hobo but I promise he was NOT bribed. ;-)

Excellent suggestion!

Thank you for this. I agree that we need to go broader with our advertising. TV and Out of Home is something we need to consider, particularly to engage new players. Music is key to tap into the emotional connection and leaning on our beautiful content is key, particularly when we show to player experience. I would like to say thank you for this thread. I always appreciate it when staff are engaged in a discussion with players and interested in feedback on how to improve something. I'd also like to add that it should not be focused solely on PoF. I don't mean to sound like PoF does not have a lot of great things to show off, but so does the rest of the game. The Mouth of Mordremoth for example, kitten amazing. If you show a shot of that thing coming up behind a player who then slowly turns around for example. Show off the diverse scenery. I personally love the Shiverpeaks areas, the majestic snow capped mountains are just beautiful. Guild Wars 2 also has the absolute best combat system of any MMO out there. It needs to be showcased.I should be the one thanking you and the rest of the GW2 community. I NEVER expected to recieve so many responders...much less such thoughtful and constructive feedback. I am so proud to be working at ArenaNet, on GW2 with this amazing group of gamers. You’re absolutly right that we need to show off all of GW2 in order to engage new players. The ArenaNet marketing team is discussing how we do exactly this with new content and the GW2.com website. Stay tuned as we move forward and reach out for more insights from the community. :-)

Hi! For clarity this 1 particular video is to attract new players but we are working on numerous videos and marketing activations intended for our existing player and players who left GW2. Retaining our existing fans is one of our top priorities!

Best feedback of the day!

Infuse and highlight the funny...I LIKE IT! This one makes it to the idea board for future videos. :-) I hope you don't make a video just like that one. It seemed offensive to me; perhaps, I'm just too old-school. I like the idea of playing into the fun and funny within the confines of what GW2 is as a game. It would not be exactly like the Deadpool video. That funny works for Deadpool. We would find a funny that works for GW2 and lean into that. :-) If you want to see types of "funny" or attempts to go viral videos that didn't work for GW2 look at the old GW2 Taxi Cab and GW2 Oath videos. Please don't go there. Please stick to videos that actually show what the game is and what it is like to play it. Gahh.. So bad I don't think it is even on the GW2 Youtube page anymore and quote from Colin before he left.https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v24hg/the_reduced_visual_noise_changes_have_to_stop_gw2/cxk2o2z/ Anything we attempt will be within the confines of what GW2 is now and promote it in the best light possible. We will have our “homeruns”. We may also “strike out”. My hope is the community will continue to work with us in both cases to foster our collaboration in driving more players into GW2. We want to do you proud! :-)

Infuse and highlight the funny...I LIKE IT! This one makes it to the idea board for future videos. :-) I hope you don't make a video just like that one. It seemed offensive to me; perhaps, I'm just too old-school. I like the idea of playing into the fun and funny within the confines of what GW2 is as a game. It would not be exactly like the Deadpool video. That funny works for Deadpool. We would find a funny that works for GW2 and lean into that. :-) Cool. As long as it's not taxi-cab funny. Good luck.Now Now ;-)

Infuse and highlight the funny...I LIKE IT! This one makes it to the idea board for future videos. :-) I hope you don't make a video just like that one. It seemed offensive to me; perhaps, I'm just too old-school.I like the idea of playing into the fun and funny within the confines of what GW2 is as a game. It would not be exactly like the Deadpool video. That funny works for Deadpool. We would find a funny that works for GW2 and lean into that. :-)

Valid. This would be a major undertaking that would take months to complete but I completely agree that we need to do this...so much so that we will make this happen!

Thank you for this. I have seen these Reddit threads and plan to read through every comment. We want to step up our game and this will be made possible with the amazing communication ArenaNet Marketing and our community now share. The Marketing team is so passionate about GW2 and its community. They are a talented bunch who work very hard. I am personally very honored to be welcomed into this team with open arms by both ArenaNet & the community. The feedback shared is being read and discussed by the Marketing Team. We will strive for perfection and we want to do you all proud. I look very forward to your detailed analysis and thank you so much for putting in so much time and effort to partner with us. :-)

There was NOTHING patronizing about this! To have a returning GW2 player provide their reasons for coming back to the game is so unbelievably valuable. As an industry professional I will tell you that you are providing “holy grail” information about an important audience we want to engage. We want to keep our players and get back any players who left GW2. I really appreciate you taking the time to provide this information and I am so happy to include the community and greatful for them being receptive to the old stuffy marketing guy ;-)

Thank you for responding :-) I think we need to evaluate the fonts utilized. This is something I will discuss with the team. I am a big fan of proving the fun by showing what real players think over press. Players love the game, which is why the have stayed with GW2. That’s powerful but I do agree we should add more context to the quotes themselves while fixing the fonts and placements. If under the player name we put something along the line of “GW2 player since 2014” would that help add context?

Infuse and highlight the funny...I LIKE IT! This one makes it to the idea board for future videos. :-)

Hi! The video is intended to be about 1 minute in length and utilized via social channels targeting people who play video games but have not yet played GW2.

You have raised so much of value. ArenaNet Marketing needs to look at a full years worth of video assets that detail what GW2 is now and highlights all of its amazing features and reasons to play. Features like mounts deserve a video dedicated to there greatness and why they are the best out there. Your greatest feedback may be the simplest and most important of everything. Players can join the core experience for free and this should be a message we drive on all assets to engage new players. Thank you so much for the constructive and valuable feedback. I will discuss this with the team and make this actionable for our ongoing campaigns. :-)

Thank you for this. I really like the idea of showing old players what has changed. This is something we need to do.

I see your point on the fonts. I’m gonna discuss this with the team and also look into what can be done with the voice actors. Thank you :-)

Thank you for this. I agree that we need to go broader with our advertising. TV and Out of Home is something we need to consider, particularly to engage new players. Music is key to tap into the emotional connection and leaning on our beautiful content is key, particularly when we show to player experience.

Great feedback. Finding a way to clearly detail this is existing players will help provide context to the quotes. :-)

My name is Mike Silbowitz and I am the Head of Global Marketing here at ArenaNet. I got the opportunity to chat with some of you this week during our Reddit Dev Celebration and really enjoyed the discussions and feedback on how to best create assets to support our Guild Wars 2 releases. I’ve met with our Marketing Team to discuss your feedback and we look forward to implementing many of your constructive and insightful suggestions over the course of the next few months. Because of the positive experience I had chatting with you all this week, I wanted to continue to test the waters and include you in the feedback process for one of our unreleased marketing assets. You have a lot of knowledge about and experience with Guild Wars 2, so why not tap your expertise and passion in reviewing a video we plan to use to engage potential new players? This unreleased video features positive accolades from our loyal fans while displaying gameplay in a way that will hopefully resonate with a new audience who may not have the rich history and knowledge you already possess. This would go live this month, targeting views by people who have never played our game, or those who may have stepped away from GW2. Any constructive feedback you can provide about this video, either positive or negative, will help us present GW2 in the best light possible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM-bf1sBeT0 I really hope you enjoy this sneak peek of the video and look forward to incorporating as much of your constructive feedback as possible in making something we all can be proud to share with our friends as an example of why they need to play GW2. Thank you and Happy Wintersday Mike Silbowitz a.k.a "Sibs"Head of Global Marketing @ ArenaNetReddit: AnetHoGM