DLC Announcement/Launch Question

[Scott.]

Hi folks.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I'd love to get some official responce from either Ed/Bo or any of the Frontier Marketing team on my topic.

But why are the DLC's pre releases marketed so poorly? Please hear me out, this isn't a moaning thread but I'd love to get some insight on why Frontier do the prelaunches the way they do.

So let me begin. When you bring any product to market, whether thats anything from a car to a movie, pre launch announcements are always made and shared by the company selling the item. For the sake of my arguement I will refer to a new car being launched. Prior to the actaul launch date (the date in which the car is available to buy) there will of been many adverts, articles, pictures, videos, spec lists etc shared with the consumer over many various channels from TV's to the internet. Obviously Planet coaster doesnt have such a global appeal as some car manufacturers so things like TV adverts are pointless but they do have a twitch account, youtube account, the forum, facebook, twitter and feature creators.

Where am I going with this? Please bare with me.

Ok so lets look at the prelaunch announcements of the Adventurer pack, due to go on sale Monday. The ammount of information being shared in negligable and I don't know why? So there have been a few picture stills shared and a forum post announcement and the odd announcement over social media but a serious lack of meaningful and tangable information. As a consumer I want to know exactly what I can be expecting in a new update before launch date. Could you imagine walking into a car dealership without knowning anything about the car and only seeing the odd photo of maybe a wheel or a wing to tempt you in? It would never happen.

Why is it such a secret when it comes to planet coaster? It might be that frontier have taken this marketing approach, to keep people keen by feeding little bits of info here and there but personally I see this as poor marketing. For example if they shared one new feature per day in the week building up to launch, I'd be dead excited/hyped. That in turn would lead me to tell others, ''Have you seen frontier are bringing waterfalls to planet coaster?'' That in turn gets others excited and so the hype spreads, but hype based on actual in game features we are getting. At the moment there is hype but only amongst hard core players and that hype is based on hopes from what they have managed to decipher from a few pictures.

So why not let your feature creatures post youtube videos leading up to launch of new rides/scenery? Why not share twitch and youtube videos prelaunch to build up genuine hype and inform consumers of features of the DLC? Why not share specs as to what exactly we will be getting? Why not share photos of new scenery pieces, rides etc (and by this I mean item specific not a picture where you have to gusess)/

You have a ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎ good product frontier and if the spooky DLC is anything to go by this DLC is going to be great. So grow some confident in your product and shout from the roof tops and share it in all the ways available to you BEFORE lauch. Trust me it will lead to increased sales, higher social media following, even more community engagement and so on.

I'm very much looking forward to the new DLC but I will have to wait until launch day to find out exactly what I'm getting. (Crazy)

Scott.

 

[Schabrackenaal]

I asked that to myself as well. I would also like to have information on this to just understand. But I can understand if Frontier don't want to talk about this as it is an important marketing insight. Nevertheless it's their decision anyway.[big grin] Because of that I just want to tell what would make (more) sense as marketing strategy in my mind (just my opinion).[big grin]

2 weeks prior to release: First information or spoiling of the new DLC coming including the planned publishing date. Coming with that first pictures. Hype

1 week prior to release: A livestream with some more information about the DLC, including some images and a video. Every day one new picture. (can be included in Workshop Wonderland stream). HYPE

2 days before release another livestream exclusively about the DLC, showing live built or videos and several images. Not everything has to be shown then, but a lot[big grin] It would be great if a dev or an artist who made those assets would be in the stream but in case they don't have time etc. it would also be great if Bo and Ed or one of them could lead us through some of the objects. MEGAHYPE

Day of release - just some videos and pictures, nothing else because people want to play at that time to explore themselves instead of watching streams.[yesnod]

A couple of days or one week after release: Another stream were questions about the new content could be answered or some new details could be explained further. It would also be interesting to know some insights of how decision was made to implements i.e. special traps or assets and what the devs/artists had problems with or how enjoying it was to make a certain trap i.e.[big grin]


By the way, I wouldn't expect an anwer here during the weekend anyway. But I see this as a way to improve publishing the next DLC in 2018 [big grin]

 

[breezerHOG1]

DLCs are not mass marketed because you have to already own the game, in which case you see the DLC in the menu. The game itself is heavily advertised. They have new ads come out every few months which keep reminding players of the latest big free update. Over the summer it was go-karts, cheats, new rides and management, and recently it was the scenario editor.

I'd say PC is definitely more advertised than Elite Dangerous, the whole alpha was a marketing gimmick to hype people up, and with RCTW competing against PC it really helped establish a dedicated fan base. I think most people who play these games have heard about PC by now, and yet Frontier still goes out of their way to do community events and livestreams and contests [up]

The ammount of information being shared in negligable and I don't know why?

People who buy DLC on day 1 don't care what is in it because they know they will enjoy it no matter what. Many fans of the game will make detailed videos displaying everything within the pack (Channel5 does it all the time) why would frontier spend extra money to do that when the fans do it for them? Just have to wait a day or two and you will have all the info you need.

 

[Scott.]

DLCs are not mass marketed because you have to already own the game, in which case you see the DLC in the menu. The game itself is heavily advertised. They have new ads come out every few months which keep reminding players of the latest big free update. Over the summer it was go-karts, cheats, new rides and management, and recently it was the scenario editor. I'd say PC is definitely more advertised than Elite Dangerous. Heck, the whole alpha was a marketing gimmick to hype people up, and with RCTW competing against PC it really helped establish a dedicated fan base

As much as I agree about your point regarding already owning the game, there are people who perhaps haven't played the game for some time.

Choosing not to advertise simply because people own the game is not good marketing. Equally seeing the DLC is available ingame again doesn't tell me what it includes and I haven't seen it live play. Am I therefore going to part with £10 just because a box pops up telling me there's a DLC? Possibly, possibly not. Why would frontier run that risk.

Equally just because Planco is advertised more than elite doesn't mean that the marketing strategy for planco is correct.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Choosing not to advertise simply because people own the game is not good marketing.

But they have advertised, if they didn't how would you know about it? What your asking for is a full detailed list of whats in the DLC, but that you have to wait for. They are "teasing" us with screenshots to build hype/excitement, and its making you itch for more [big grin] if they showed you everything at once it would be boring, but I agree I wish we knew more about what else they are working on for 2018! its cool to see they are working on auto-tunneling, even if it was delayed.

just because Planco is advertised more than elite doesn't mean that the marketing strategy for planco is correct.

With all the livestreams and contests they have? I dont know what more you could ask for, I mean I'd like to have a full water park expansion like RCT3 but apparently Bo recently said on a Schematics video that bigger expansions might not be in the plans I wonder what happened to the rumors of Planet Safari.

 

[banjotails]

Totally agree. The marketing stinks. I got more info of from this interview of some small YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/BQrjfLjrVw4

The teaser trailers are a waste of time and again didn’t go down well with most as was stated yet again by comments of “it would be nice if you actually showed us something”
Yes... show us what we get before the day and the trailer on the day. Make multiple short clips of everything mentioned by bo in that interview. Along with a few images thrown in. Stop just relying on the same YouTube click group to get the info out.
I really thought the marketing strategy would have changed after the spooky pack lame attempt. Maybe frontier needs to watch how cities skylines does the announcement videos and learn from that.

 

[stuk71]

The fact that you know about the new adventure DLC before it's been launched shows that the marketing ain't that bad[happy]

Besides, Frontier will get a huge amount of free advertising/marketing after the DLC is released...

 

[ojonas]

I really thought the marketing strategy would have changed after the spooky pack lame attempt. Maybe frontier needs to watch how cities skylines does the announcement videos and learn from that.

You can turn that argument around the other way as well. Maybe the result for the Spooky pack went better than Frontier expected and thus it is a very valid model for them to continue to use? We don't have any sales data but they do. They will look at how many DLCs they sell compared to total install base of Planet Coaster base game as well as how many new Planet Coaster copies they sell around the release of a DLC. We can just guess here but since they are a business I am sure they do what they feel is the best for the business, both short term and long term. If the Spooky DLC did not do well, why on earth would they then do the same strategy again? My guess is that Spooky sold better than expected and that the marketing worked.

It seems to be working for the Adventure DLC as well. Look how many people are talking about it here and the fact that we don't know more than a few teasers just increasing the amount of discussions = free marketing for Frontier. Besides, we just as recently as yesterday got news from Frontier that one item in the update would not be ready in time. If they show everything up front and then have to pull back it will create a bigger issue for them than not giving us everything up front. Broken promises is much worse than no promises at all. We know Frontier does not want to release something that is not ready to their standards.

We all want to know everything as soon as possible, myself included, but I do appreciate the current strategy Frontier is using and it seems to be working very well.

The way the OP is written it sounds like Frontier is run by a bunch of amateurs that has no clue what they are doing. That is a very dangerous assumption to make, especially when it comes to business. Everything Frontier does with marketing is carefully designed to maximize sales. No one here truly thinks that "Spoiler Sam" releases all the information on a whim, right? Of course, every spoiler he gives is carefully planned to increase hype. It is not him saying more than he should. It is him saying exactly what he is told to do. We all love it and it has worked perfectly. I always looking forward to when he is on the stream, because you know you will get some new information you did not have before. But don't tell me it is an unplanned spoiler. Same goes for when Bo joined the podcast earlier this week to "spoil" some additional information about the game. It is all planned. We all love it, myself included. It keeps the hype going for a long time instead of a short spike and then nothing until release...

 

[Joël]

Bo has given some insight in how Frontier works with announcements regarding future content of a game. Especially the 3rd paragraph is relevant in this thread;

Short answer to the thread title: no, there's not. On Monday we've got the Adventure Pack update, and we really think you'll love it, but there's no other content update in 2017.

Sometimes on livestreams people can get excited and talk about things that are still under discussion. We have other official avenues where we announce new information, and we'll make it very clear when there are new things to talk about. Someone from the community team will post it on the forums and website, our social media manager will post it on those social sites, it will be in the newsletter, or it will be said in a content reveal livestream - hosted by either Ed or myself. We let you know before the streams when there's a special content reveal stream coming up.

We are very careful not to make promises, because we don't want to raise expectations that can't come true. I know that some people have had personal chats with us, or speculate on things they have heard on the streams, but please don't take that as official communication. We like to "spoil" things every now and then; but without trying to spoil the magic, these info drops are discussed and planned in advance along with our other communication strategies.

Hope this makes sense!
[heart]
Bo

Frontier has a solid communication strategy that they abide by. They firmly believe that, based on their experience, this is the best communication strategy for them to use.

I realise that not everyone agrees with this strategy. I can relate with people who say that Frontier should be more open, but I can also see the disadvantages of being more open. Each strategy has it's advantages and disadvantages, and I personally think that Frontier has chosen a communication strategy that seeks a balance between the those two; a strategy that is ultimately good for their own marketing as well as good for the community.

I personally respect Frontier's current communication strategy and I can see why they have chosen to abide by it.

 

[pwc1]

I'm good with how Frontier does its business, as long as they stay far away from poor business practices like EA.

 

[Scott.]

Bo has given some insight in how Frontier works with announcements regarding future content of a game. Especially the 3rd paragraph is relevant in this thread;



Frontier has a solid communication strategy that they abide by. They firmly believe that, based on their experience, this is the best communication strategy for them to use.

I realise that not everyone agrees with this strategy. I can relate with people who say that Frontier should be more open, but I can also see the disadvantages of being more open. Each strategy has it's advantages and disadvantages, and I personally think that Frontier has chosen a communication strategy that seeks a balance between the those two; a strategy that is ultimately good for their own marketing as well as good for the community.

I personally respect Frontier's current communication strategy and I can see why they have chosen to abide by it.

I don't disagree with what you say Joel. I wholeheartedly understand the under promise and over deliver approach that they take. That said, I'd like to think a company like frontier knows what 'definates' will be in the DLC release a week before launch and the outlay of putting some streams together along with a few videos etc would not be taxing in terms of money or time with the reward being fairly significant in terms of increased awareness of both the base game and the DLC.

As they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity....

I still maintain people need to be made aware of what base additions will be arriving in a DLC before the release date. For those of you saying

The fact that you know about the new adventure DLC before it's been launched shows that the marketing ain't that bad

Besides, Frontier will get a huge amount of free advertising/marketing after the DLC is released...

I'm a hardcore PC fan so ofcourse I know about the update, but how many friends who play the game casually or like this kind of game genre have I told about the update? A grand total of zero. If frontier want to take that chance that its base game players will be telling friends etc about the DLC after release rather than actually playing it... Then thats their choice. I am afterall just a consumer.

 

[Harbinger]

I wonder what happened to the rumors of Planet Safari.

Planet Safari was speculated by most to be a spiritual sequel to Zoo Tycoon and would have been a second game to carry the "Planet" moniker, thereby establishing a franchise. It's pretty likely this plan was modified when Universal approached them wanting an updated JPOG game to tie in with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Essentially the base idea of the game is very similar as JPOG owed a lot of it's inspiration to Zoo Tycoon anyway.

There's always a chance Frontier may revisit once they've completed JWE, they have announced their intent to increase their developer numbers and release 1 game per annum (instead of 1 every 2 years) once they move into their new premises next year.

 

[Asteroidcrusher]

Over 1000,000.00 copies sold since official release (1 year) .
Me thinks Frontier knows exactly what they are busy with.
I'm pretty sure the competition are also stunned by Planet Coaster Success. [up]

 

[PauseGames]

I get your point Scott, but I also really enjoy the unknown. When the pack is downloaded and installed tomorrow the fact we largely don't know what we're getting makes it even more exciting when booting up for the first time! It's like receiving an early Christmas present that is a surprise!

By the end of tomorrow lots of people will do detailed videos showcasing the DLC (me included) so from Tuesday onwards you could then make up your mind to buy it or not.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Planet Safari was speculated by most to be a spiritual sequel to Zoo Tycoon and would have been a second game to carry the "Planet" moniker, thereby establishing a franchise. It's pretty likely this plan was modified when Universal approached them wanting an updated JPOG game to tie in with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Essentially the base idea of the game is very similar as JPOG owed a lot of it's inspiration to Zoo Tycoon anyway.

There's always a chance Frontier may revisit once they've completed JWE, they have announced their intent to increase their developer numbers and release 1 game per annum (instead of 1 every 2 years) once they move into their new premises next year.

If that's true that totally sucks. JWE looks like a fun game, but I have no interest in playing that as a stand-alone game. It would be a lot more exciting if it was an expansion to PC, the way that RCT3 had Wild! If Frontier was actually planning on release a stand-alone ZooTycoon, I dont see the point theres already a ton of games in that genre [blah]

 

[Joël]

If that's true that totally sucks. JWE looks like a fun game, but I have no interest in playing that as a stand-alone game. It would be a lot more exciting if it was an expansion to PC, the way that RCT3 had Wild! If Frontier was actually planning on release a stand-alone ZooTycoon, I dont see the point theres already a ton of games in that genre [blah]

Off-topic: based on early feedback, I personally think that you are in the minority with that opinion. There is a large amount of players looking forward to JWE as a stand alone theme park sim game, possibly even more than the amount of players that Planet Coaster has. But that's just a guess, based on early feedback, and I can be wrong about it.

 

[breezerHOG1]

There is a large amount of players looking forward to JWE as a stand alone theme park sim game, possibly even more than the amount of players that Planet Coaster has. But that's just a guess, based on early feedback, and I can be wrong about it.

Honestly, its kind of sad PC isnt more popular. RCT3 had over 10 million sales (in over a decade) but PC needs something to give it a boost.

Theres a few reasons for why JWE might be more popular: It has a famous name attached to it, Its a console game, and its more casual friendly. But IMO a game like JWE seems like it will just "come and go" it wont get expansions like PC can because its a console game, and it wont flodd youtube with cool videos like PC, which to me means it will be worthy of purchase after a price drop into the bargain bin.

Now if PC is anything like RCT3 (which I believe it is) then PC is a game that will still be played in 5+ years, and hopefully will still be gaining new content too. I cant imagine there being a sequel or competitor to PC because nobody will want to lose all the workshop items. But its still got a long way to go to catch up to RCT3 (in both content, and sales).

I think part of the problem is that PC is more focused on building than on sim management, and its kind of complex and time consuming. I know some fans around here will blast me for saying I should go play a sim management game, and stop expecting PC to be something its not, but I dont see why PC cant be both a construction & a top-quality-management game. There are a TON of new sim management games coming out (Project Hospital, Starmancer, Industries of Titan, Spinnortality, etc) and they all have a simple UI with engaging management and they are really popular because they are casual fun games. Even Parkasaurus has taken JWE and turned it into Paritect lol. But PC hasnt really evolved a whole lot in either UI or management (the new rest feature is nice, but its small) at least we now have the scenario editor, that does help somewhat but it still lacks something for casual players

There have been many discussions about this, but I think most of the management fans have given up and moved on from PC. The miniDLCs we get dont help draw in new players, they only appeal to people who already enjoy the game. That's why I'm getting so disappointed when I hear that PC wont be getting full expansions like RCT3 because it would help propel this game to the next level! Even a basic water park expansion could add new levels of management [up]

If frontier releases 4 or 5 more small DLCs over the next year, I think it would truly kill this game for future buyers. Hopefully the devs are just being secretive and have water parks in the works for 2018, or Maybe I'm wrong, but it will be sad if we never get a full expansion

 

[Spanky]

RCT3 has only sold that amount of copies because of the cheap Platinum Bundles that you can buy between 7 and 10 Euros in nearly any Electronic Market. Personally I think the time for real Expansion Packs is definetively over. Expansion Packs are relics of a time as Steam as a platform for games didn't exist and the industrie always fights against illegal copying of games. I think the only games with seperate Expansion Packs are still Sims 4 and WoW, but in both games you need money to play. Don't know, if that the way you want to play PC?

As long as PC is sold on Steam, you always have the option to buy your DLC's via Steam. So you can, for example, also install an older DLC, if you didn't want to buy it immediately on the release day. And who knows, maybe they offer later some DLC's as a kind of bundle for a special price. I don't think, that this wil kill the game. I have started to play Cities: Skylines and I'm happy that I could buy any of the older DLC's of this game to complete my game after and after.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Expansion Packs are relics of a time

Not sure what makes it a relic... Starcraft 2 had expansions, Diablo 3, Red Dead Remeption, GTA4 and GTA5 have expansions, I could go on...

I think it has more to do with the type of game, some games have sequels, some have expansions. and PC is a game that COULD have expansions if the devs wanted to do so. It wouldn't make sense to release a sequel or new game in this genre, compared to expanding this one.

Steam as a platform for games didn't exist and the industrie always fights against illegal copying of games.

I dont see the connection between expansions and piracy. Planet Coaster has Denuvo which helped to "slow down" piracy [snipped due to discussing piracy]

in both games you need money to play. Don't know, if that the way you want to play PC?

Are you saying that the Sims 4 has a monthly subscription fee? What about single player? I thought monthly subsciption fees were just for mmo type games, that model certainly wouldnt work for a single player game like PC

I don't know, As long as PC is sold on Steam, you always have the option to buy your DLC's via Steam.

That's funny, I can install RCT1 without the need of Steam or the internet, but if steam goes down PC might not be available... and its not really an "option" when theres no other choice [tongue]

So you can, for example, also install an older DLC, if you didn't want to buy it immediately on the release day

Thats the thing though, I usually wait for games to come down in price or hit the bargain bin. Now I realize that hurts business like frontier, which is why they chose the DLC model (cuz theres no "trade ins"). But that doesnt change the fact that I (and many others) are a bit disappointed with the currently DLC. I mean spooky and adventure is alright, but the total price of the 5 DLCs so far is close the price of the base game. So, for now I will just wait on buying DLC and hope something better comes along next year if I'm going to spend another $45 or more on this game, I expect the additional content to offer a bit more.

 

[chromeleaves]

Are you saying that the Sims 4 has a monthly subscription fee? What about single player? I thought monthly subsciption fees were just for mmo type games, that model certainly wouldnt work for a single player game like PC

Not certain what Spanky meant but The Sims 4 doesn't have a monthly subscription.

Thats the thing though, I usually wait for games to come down in price or hit the bargain bin. Now I realize that hurts business like frontier, which is why they chose the DLC model (cuz theres no "trade ins"). But that doesnt change the fact that I (and many others) are a bit disappointed with the currently DLC. I mean spooky and adventure is alright, but the total price of the 5 DLCs so far is close the price of the base game. So, for now I will just wait on buying DLC and hope something better comes along next year if I'm going to spend another $45 or more on this game, I expect the additional content to offer a bit more.

The Sims has expansion packs (which is kind of standard with simulation games), and game packs and stuff packs.
With The Sims, it takes no time to pay more for the add-ons than you paid for the base game.
Isn't that the way it works normally? Get 'em hooked with the affordable base game and feed the habit with higher profit DLC.

Value is subjective.
If I get a few hours of entertainment from it then it's worth the purchase.