The final marketing drive - looking for a mainstream audience? Target the MOBA crowd

[WorstUsernameEver]

Doh, must have accidentally hit a like button while strolling through here. Can't seem to unlike it at this point :\.

Actually, you can. Just click again on the like button and it'll undo it.

Edited August 16, 2014 by WorstUsernameEver

[Doppelschwert]

That option disappears after you leave the page. Just tried it out with the like I gave you

Edited August 16, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[Sarex]

It does not matter if there is lore, if no one knows it and people have to google it to find it. It's like with Counterstrike, I played it as a child, but the story behind it was not what I played for. And if you said I could google it, I certainly wouldn't, because it does not matter there. 

 

Oh are we strawmaning now, ok... Where do you think the lore on the wiki came from? The lore was in the client and on the main website for those who where interested, maybe it's still on the main web site. It came out through weekly journals. People who are not interested in the story will just skip dialog and cutscenes in any game, people who are interested will read the lore (weekly journals) and watch cutscenes, what you did as a child does not equate to everyone else. This is all besides the point, he said there was no bare bone lore, I proved him wrong.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Sarex

[Darkpriest]

Well.. I can tell only from my experience...

 

I am currently at ~5,3k MMR in DotA2, and in my off time from DotA i play things like Path of Exile, X-COM, All the classic RPGs, recently Divinity OS, Played M&M X, HoM&M each of them. I also love RTSes, like SC, Warcraft, WH40k: Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, C&Cs, and Total War series. I rarely play shooters,, the most recent shooter was ME3, and I even dabbled in Multiplayer option there, but they get boring for me real fast, so I tend to avoid them.

 

I have quite a few friends who share similar tastes. DotA players rarely go to find their multiplayer fix elsewhere (the cool thing recently was heartstone for a while), but they also like single player games.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Darkpriest

[BrokenMask]

 

It does not matter if there is lore, if no one knows it and people have to google it to find it. It's like with Counterstrike, I played it as a child, but the story behind it was not what I played for. And if you said I could google it, I certainly wouldn't, because it does not matter there. 

 

Oh are we strawmaning now, ok... Where do you think the lore on the wiki came from? The lore was in the client and on the main website for those who where interested, maybe it's still on the main web site. It came out through weekly journals. People who are not interested in the story will just skip dialog and cutscenes in any game, people who are interested will read the lore (weekly journals) and watch cutscenes, what you did as a child does not equate to everyone else. This is all besides the point, he said there was no bare bone lore, I proved him wrong.

 

So the fact there is bare minimum proves him "completely" wrong? You seem to be awfully lot focusing on nitpicking one aspect of the post just so you can say "I'm right, you are wrong"

Also, your logic that "people not interested in reading lore would skip the story anyway" is faulty. There are quite lot of people who never bother to read through ES lore while still being interested in the "story".

 

Like I said multiple times, its irrelevant. Sure, SOME people of that huge fanbase probably follows the lore. But heck, some of those people might not even play the game. I've seen a thing happen before where people who never actually play the game still read on the fluff and do fanart and crap. Why? Because they actually like the characters more than the actual game.

 

And again, TF2 has comics which explain the silly story, but how many people actually play the game FOR those comics?...

[Sensuki]

There's obviously a lot of people in here who've tried to play DotA (or equivalent), got destroyed, rage quit and have a bad opinion about the game style and community.

[Freshock]

Played League of Legends for maybe 8 months or so and I've never seen such a bad community (bad remarks in every game almost) besides in the Call of Duty-series. It's hard not to think badly about that genre afterwards, but I guess not all games in the genre is like that - and it seems like Dota 2 might be a bit more mature in it's community (might be wrong). But in the end I think the MOBA people are just a bunch of people from different genres mixed together. Don't think they have a special taste besides MOBA games itself. 

[Sensuki]

That's pretty much my point - people who play MOBAs should be able to deal with the combat, and it's also the largest PC market out there. Some people have said MOBAs are more like an ARPG - no they aren't. Most of Valve's Dota 2 mechanics are derived from the Warcraft 3 engine, which is an RTS.

 

The DotA community is better as a whole, yes, but if you make your team lose in a DotA game, you are going to get abused - that's just how it is.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Sensuki

[Freshock]

The DotA community is better as a whole, yes, but if you make your team lose in a DotA game, you are going to get abused - that's just how it is.

 

Hate that it's like that. I'm currently playing CS:GO and the flaming and bad language just makes me not wanting to play competetive mode at all. It's going to be a good change playing a singleplayer game again. 

[Sensuki]

I think it's a bit double sided. If you are terrible a team multiplayer game and someone is flaming you for it - most people get defensive and abuse back, whereas if you take a different approach such as "I'm sorry, what can I do better?" most of the time that improves the situation, not always, but quite often. People will give you suggestions and help you along.

 

Whereas if you are too proud to admit that you are playing badly/don't know what you're doing and can't take a bit of crap, then it just becomes an abuse war.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Sensuki

[Bryy]

I think it's a bit double sided. If you are terrible a team multiplayer game and someone is flaming you for it - most people get defensive and abuse back, whereas if you take a different approach such as "I'm sorry, what can I do better?" most of the time that improves the situation, not always, but quite often. People will give you suggestions and help you along.

I remember when I tried to diffuse a situation on L4D2 when an obviously 8-12 year old was asking me if I was retarded.

 

I stopped. "Are you seriously asking me that?"

 

"Yes. I am."

 

"Yes, I do have autism."

 

Unfortunately, that led to the kid being even more a ****. My other teammates, however, did the opposite and started treating me like I was four and needed to be coddled.

[BrokenMask]

There's obviously a lot of people in here who've tried to play DotA (or equivalent), got destroyed, rage quit and have a bad opinion about the game style and community.

Well, that certainly isn't a strawman comment Nope, totally not a comment that ignores the arguments given. Not at all.

 

I just don't see why MOBA audience would be interested in this. Seriously, MOBA has completely different hook than what CRPG has...

 

You might as well be saying "Oh, so you like Call of Duty? Well, you would obviously love Street Fighter, they are both action games!"  <_< Sure, SOME people will like both genres, heck, majority of people like multiple different genres, but you are saying "Hey, its great idea to target this one particular market that has barely anything to do with this game!" as if it would be this genius sure to work plan.

 

I'd leave marketing to professionals. Surely Paradox has better idea about what audiences these types of games should be marketed to, at least when compared to companies like EA and that horrible marketing campaign with DA: O... Seriously, what the hell was that.

[Freshock]

@Bryy Seriously feel like quitting all multiplayer games when hearing that. I feel like people acted so much better on the internet/online games when I was a kid. Maybe more and more people feel like they can say anything now just because they know that their true identity won't be revealed to the one they are hurting. Maybe before they weren't sure what consequences flaming others had. 

[Doppelschwert]

There's obviously a lot of people in here who've tried to play DotA (or equivalent), got destroyed, rage quit and have a bad opinion about the game style and community.

 

I think it's pretty condescending to imply that everyone who dislikes something has to be bad at it. I could also claim that people defending MOBAs just have to justify the time they wasted on them, but neither do I think so nor is it constructive to the discussion.

 

It is a free online game after all, of course the majority of the community is going to consists of ****. I mean, it's the internet.

The level of blaming and insulting gets absurd at times. People often get flamed although they admit their own mistakes and try to be cooperative. Hell, you can even be flamed at just because you disagreed on some stupid plan and did your own thing that ultimately won the game, or from having a different build than the ones everyone else is using. They don't even wait to see if your build works or not. From my experience, this is also independent from your ranking.

 

If you have limited gaming time, it's completely understandable that you don't feel like keeping up with some aggressive teenagers just because the game may get better at some later time with more experience.

 

MOBAs require a lot of dedicated time and experience to be able to play them fairly good. IMO, it's totally understandable to dislike them if you lack the time to get the experience.

 

The closest single player experience to MOBAs I know of is probably Aarklash Legacy, and I'd say it's still quite different from the IE games.

[Sarex]

I could also claim that people defending MOBAs just have to justify the time they wasted on them, but neither do I think so nor is it constructive to the discussion.

 

Well if you did say that you would have been laughed at and ridiculed. There is no difference in putting time in to a MOBA and putting time in to PoE or any other game for that matter, both is wasted time (with the exception of streamers and professional players who make money of the game).

[Sensuki]

I think it's pretty condescending to imply that everyone who dislikes something has to be bad at it.

That's not what I was implying at all. It's a pretty common thing for someone to try to play DotA, get destroyed in their first few games and then just give up and there's a lot of people that have written posts writing off the community as a whole from a very bitter and shallow viewpoint indicating that they have had a terrible experience trying to get into it. On top of that they are using that negative experience as "evidence" that the moba crowd as a whole would not be interested in Pillars of Eternity.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Sensuki

[WorstUsernameEver]

That option disappears after you leave the page. Just tried it out with the like I gave you

Oh that's true. That's really dumb then.

[Malekith]

 

There's obviously a lot of people in here who've tried to play DotA (or equivalent), got destroyed, rage quit and have a bad opinion about the game style and community.

Well, that certainly isn't a strawman comment Nope, totally not a comment that ignores the arguments given. Not at all.

 

I just don't see why MOBA audience would be interested in this. Seriously, MOBA has completely different hook than what CRPG has...

 

You might as well be saying "Oh, so you like Call of Duty? Well, you would obviously love Street Fighter, they are both action games!"  <_< Sure, SOME people will like both genres, heck, majority of people like multiple different genres, but you are saying "Hey, its great idea to target this one particular market that has barely anything to do with this game!" as if it would be this genius sure to work plan.

 

I'd leave marketing to professionals. Surely Paradox has better idea about what audiences these types of games should be marketed to, at least when compared to companies like EA and that horrible marketing campaign with DA: O... Seriously, what the hell was that.

 

Your arguement doesn't hold water because you somehow assume that all 60 million MOBA players out there are hardcore PvP players, who only play MOBAs ffs.

LoL and DotA were the successes they are because can be played and are fun in a completely casual way. 80% of their playerbase are casual players who play a ton of other games and just happen to find this kind of gameplay fun.(i'm one of them).

 

As for karkarov's arguement that MOBA players don't care about story and RPing, even if that's true, i disagree that it somehow make them dislike a story focused game is they like the gameplay. Nothing stops them to ignore to roleplaying aspect and play the game like IWD plays.

And i believe that PoE's gameplay (and the IE one) is way closer to DotA,Warcraft 3 or LoL than to something like ME, TES or Witcher 2.

I don't saying that Bioware or CDPR audiences won't like PoE, the people who like story first are a natural fit for PoE, and i believe are the ones that will form the majority of the audience.

But from the playerbase that hasn't played the IE games, someone who has only played MOBA's or Blizzard games will have an easier time getting into this style of game than someone who only played modern RPGs (DA:O excluded)

Edited August 17, 2014 by Malekith

[Panteleimon]

 

I could also claim that people defending MOBAs just have to justify the time they wasted on them, but neither do I think so nor is it constructive to the discussion.

 

Well if you did say that you would have been laughed at and ridiculed. There is no difference in putting time in to a MOBA and putting time in to PoE or any other game for that matter, both is wasted time (with the exception of streamers and professional players who make money of the game).

 

 

 

You completely missed the point and are simply determined to be antagonistic and unpleasant.

[Doppelschwert]

 

I think it's pretty condescending to imply that everyone who dislikes something has to be bad at it.

That's not what I was implying at all. It's a pretty common thing for someone to try to play DotA, get destroyed in their first few games and then just give up and there's a lot of people that have written posts writing off the community as a whole from a very bitter and shallow viewpoint indicating that they have had a terrible experience trying to get into it. On top of that they are using that negative experience as "evidence" that the moba crowd as a whole would not be interested in Pillars of Eternity.

 

 

Then I apologize for misunderstanding you.

However, I do think the community is partly responsible for this behaviour, so IMO the impression is somehow justified. I often feel like its more about winning for the moba crowd then having fun while playing. If I play dota2, I try to win of course, but I'm still satisfied if it is a close loss. Most people I know aren't, and most people evaluate you on the metric of winning, which is a shame IMO. That's probably the toughest part when you want to get into the game.

 

 

 

 

 

I could also claim that people defending MOBAs just have to justify the time they wasted on them, but neither do I think so nor is it constructive to the discussion.

 

Well if you did say that you would have been laughed at and ridiculed. There is no difference in putting time in to a MOBA and putting time in to PoE or any other game for that matter, both is wasted time (with the exception of streamers and professional players who make money of the game).

 

 

 

You completely missed the point and are simply determined to be antagonistic and unpleasant.

 

 

Indeed.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[Sensuki]

Then I apologize for misunderstanding you.

However, I do think the community is partly responsible for this behaviour, so IMO the impression is somehow justified. I often feel like its more about winning for the moba crowd then having fun while playing. If I play dota2, I try to win of course, but I'm still satisfied if it is a close loss. Most people I know aren't, and most people evaluate you on the metric of winning, which is a shame IMO. That's probably the toughest part when you want to get into the game.

Well losing freaking sucks most of the time. Sometimes I've lost a game, but I did some awesome plays / had some fun battles / kills etc and you still kinda feel down about losing but at least you got something out of it. Other times you just get smashed and it's just crap and you just want it to be over already so you can start a new game fresh.

 

I actually think the MMR system and score keeping makes it more hostile than it used to be. Back in DotA 1 there were no wins / losses etc for it because it was a custom game. Granted there were also no penalties for quitting early, so a lot of games would end after first blood, the guy who died would leave, and then others would leave, gg. Even still, ~2004-2008 DotA 1 era was one of the best times MP online wise for me.

 

People are worried about losing MMR. If there's that one guy who's playing a hero he's never played before and he's feeding 0-10 in a ranked mmr game or something, everyone's going to be pretty annoyed about it. Especially considering it's a considerable time investment (~40 mins average).

 

Back in DotA 1 I was less angry about losing because it didn't mean anything. This is one of the downsides about using an MMR calibration system.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Sensuki

[BrokenMask]

Your arguement doesn't hold water because you somehow assume that all 60 million MOBA players out there are hardcore PvP players, who only play MOBAs ffs.

LoL and DotA were the successes they are because can be played and are fun in a completely casual way. 80% of their playerbase are casual players who play a ton of other games and just happen to find this kind of gameplay fun.(i'm one of them).

I'm not saying that MOBA players don't like other type of games. I meant that I don't see a reason that they would like this game BECAUSE they like MOBAs. Does that sentence make sense? I'm not native English speaker.

 

Also, you just said "casual" players <_< Most of casual players don't play games that require lot of time per playtime. I mean, maybe they have 100 hours spent into multiplayer games, but most casual players I have talked to don't play rpgs and such singleplayer games that require lot of time.

Edited August 17, 2014 by BrokenMask

[Malekith]

 

Your arguement doesn't hold water because you somehow assume that all 60 million MOBA players out there are hardcore PvP players, who only play MOBAs ffs.

LoL and DotA were the successes they are because can be played and are fun in a completely casual way. 80% of their playerbase are casual players who play a ton of other games and just happen to find this kind of gameplay fun.(i'm one of them).

I'm not saying that MOBA players don't like other type of games. I meant that I don't see a reason that they would like this game BECAUSE they like MOBAs. Does that sentence make sense? I'm not native English speaker.

 

Also, you just said "casual" players <_< Most of casual players don't play games that require lot of time per playtime. I mean, maybe they have 100 hours spent into multiplayer games, but most casual players I have talked to don't play rpgs and such singleplayer games that require lot of time.

 

Sorry, i meant casual MOBA players, not casual gamers in general.

[BrokenMask]

 

 

Your arguement doesn't hold water because you somehow assume that all 60 million MOBA players out there are hardcore PvP players, who only play MOBAs ffs.

LoL and DotA were the successes they are because can be played and are fun in a completely casual way. 80% of their playerbase are casual players who play a ton of other games and just happen to find this kind of gameplay fun.(i'm one of them).

I'm not saying that MOBA players don't like other type of games. I meant that I don't see a reason that they would like this game BECAUSE they like MOBAs. Does that sentence make sense? I'm not native English speaker.

 

Also, you just said "casual" players <_< Most of casual players don't play games that require lot of time per playtime. I mean, maybe they have 100 hours spent into multiplayer games, but most casual players I have talked to don't play rpgs and such singleplayer games that require lot of time.

 

Sorry, i meant casual MOBA players, not casual gamers in general.

 

Ah, I was confused there for a second, now your post makes more sense.

[Monte Carlo]

Looking at games synergies on my Steam friend list my RPG friends and my RTS friends seem to play the other genre pretty heavily, without any conscious crossover when I friended them (if that makes sense). I have well over a hundred Steam friends, mostly from Company of Heroes.

 

Not very scientific conclusion - RTS players like CRPGs.