Good News for EverQuest Marketing
Two days ago Omeedd Dariani left Sony Online Entertainment. Omeedd was the Senior Brand Manager of the EverQuest franchise. I mean no disrespect to Omeedd as a person -- none…
Two days ago Omeedd Dariani left Sony Online Entertainment. Omeedd was the Senior Brand Manager of the EverQuest franchise. I mean no disrespect to Omeedd as a person -- none…
Dear SOE, I'm one of your original players back from the EverQuest days. I played the original EverQuest for many years, and I have continued to follow and play just…
Okay, so this happened. Some people are miffed. Some people are laughing. Some people wonder what the early adopters think. Hey there, I'm Keen -- I'm an early adopter of EverQuest…
The ‘buy your way into beta’ or ‘crowd-funding’ or ‘founders programs’ out there are quickly becoming a norm. For the sake of this post let’s call all of them founders programs. Â Â I have purchased several of them. Â Personally, I do not think they are necessarily a bad concept when handled properly.
These founders programs can get expensive. Â I’ve paid $10, $20, $40, $50, $100 for them. Â I’ve even supported some games as a founder that I think are still three years away, and I supported them over a year ago! Â How much is too much? Â Realistically, I have yet to see a founders program show me a true return on the investment. Â I give the money in exchange for access, which I suppose has a qualitative value. Â I give the money to support a team or IP (which I suppose also has an odd sort of value to it). Â I give in exchange for trinkets, tchochkes, baubles, etc., that I use for probably 5 minutes in-game then replace or put in my bank because I feel too guilty to delete them.
What games should, realistically, have founders programs? Â The business side can argue any of them when players are willing to pay money today for a game tomorrow. Â It’s finance 101. Â But should they? Â The consumer advocate in me wants to say that sometimes it’s not always a good idea to take money from people so quickly.
Let’s look at an example of a good founder’s program. Â This has nothing to do with the game itself being good, bad, or the final product being worth the money. I simply like how they handled their program. (more…)
It's been a while since I've written about Landmark. Â Yep, I'm still playing! Â I'm eagerly awaiting the upcoming patches, though. Â Right now the game is still all about gathering some…
Sorry for the slow few days around here. Â We've actually been *gasp* playing games. The Elder Scrolls Online ESO launched two days ago, and I'm actually having more fun than…
I am having a blast with Landmark. Â I love making things. Â The problem I am having is that I can't seem to make things look good. Â I'm hard on myself,…
Landmark received a rather large patch yesterday which introduced the Tundra and Old Growth Forest biomes. Â I've been waiting to finally be able to have a real forest rather than…
Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson posted a sneak peak at Landmark's Business Model yesterday evening. If you're going to play Landmark you really should give it a read. The plan follows a…
The EverQuest Next Landmark team is asking for feedback on improving the new user experience via a Roundtable poll. Â I voted, then gasped at the results. Â Notice a trend? Â Yeah,…