Square-Enix, WORST MARKETING EVER... For the love of God, WHY?!

[Dragonheart]

Let us, the fans, do the marketing.

Everyone, grab the video link and pass it on to every major gaming website forum you can find and let the news spread.

Me? I'm submitting this to Blisteredthumbs and kotaku myself. Assuming they haven't already gotten it.

Already posted it on 3 forum + any facebook groups i joined from ffxi, wow, tera, xiv ecc.

And the conclusion is always the same. They didn't know that the game was showed, or sad thing, they didn't know that the game is being rebuild from 0.

[Babydoll]

No, i don't think i'm exaggerating. I see hype only here, in official forum. Most of the players, and sites don't even know that the game has been showed.

yeah! My friends dont even know what 2.0 is despite me posting pics and video links they are clueless to what it is. They STILL say "that failure mmo se made in 2010 is still around?" its not my job to advertise their stuff, they really need to get on top of things as people are clearly confused or have no idea about it...

[AeraLucis]

Why was this gameplay video not immediately posted to the FFXIV promotional site?

It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that gameplay footage will draw in more people than silly CGI trailers. We know they have the footage cut together. Why not just release it so we can show people an authentic look at 2.0.

And yea, we could link the poor quality version someone took on their own, but then anyone unfamiliar with FFXIV mechanics would be confused as to the fine refinements in the UI, as it comes out quite blurry and hard to see.

This is like marketing 101, but it looks like SE skipped class on that one.

[neorei]

we should have been punched in the face with marketing and all that, hell even FFXI has an entire EVENT for their game. I know SE is trying to be careful and try to cut advertising cost but fuck man we need that to push other people to the game. Hell IGN/Gametrailers HAVE NOTHING ATM as of gameplay, you forgetting your two markets. we already had a lame showing in E3.

[Kerwin]

Oh god, don't give it to Kotaku. All you'll hear from them is "Wark wark FFXIV is still around lol look at this garbage video runescape looks better lol they think adding jumping and trees will make it better lol look at that grass this game will fail." And the comments will be nothing but "lol they should just let this game die lol rename it ffxv lol why is it not f2p no chance itll beat gw2 lol." And so on.

LOL! You nailed it. I can't even read off that site anymore it just fusterates me. But back on topic i have to agree, the only vid we saw was captured off of a cell phone? I hope SE releases an official video of gameplay because all this "grass" crap spawned because of a low quality video of ARR on a projector screen.

[Dragonheart]

yeah! My friends dont even know what 2.0 is despite me posting pics and video links they are clueless to what it is. They STILL say "that failure mmo se made in 2010 is still around?" its not my job to advertise their stuff, they really need to get on top of things as people are clearly confused or have no idea about it...

Ohhh, so i'm not the only one that noticed this... And i'm posting on the major italian forums.
Some people asked me if was paid by SE to publish any info about the game..

Look the post i made here: explaining what is being done and what you need to know about in 2.0 a couple of days away from gc:

http://www.mmorpgitalia.it/site/show...iorni-dalla-GC

I got many thanks from ppl that didn't know where or how find information on 2.0...

[Dragonheart]

we should have been punched in the face with marketing and all that, hell even FFXI has an entire EVENT for their game. I know SE is trying to be careful and try to cut advertising cost but fuck man we need that to push other people to the game. Hell IGN/Gametrailers HAVE NOTHING ATM as of gameplay, you forgetting your two markets. we already had a lame showing in E3.

Another strike. At least the streaming.. c'mon..

[Antipika]

And yea, we could link the poor quality version someone took on their own, but then anyone unfamiliar with FFXIV mechanics would be confused as to the fine refinements in the UI, as it comes out quite blurry and hard to see.

This is like marketing 101, but it looks like SE skipped class on that one.

Gonna be honest there, if you are not familiar with XIV mechanics, anything shown that's UI related doesn't worth a single second of your time.

That's just a basic UI like you find anywhere in any game, including the smallest free to play. Do you expect non XIV players to go "wooooow" when seeing a drag & drop being performed?

Do you want SE to advertise ARR with a list like:

NEW IN ARR:

- Now with a proper camera: scroll back far away from your character to see your surroundings
- NEW: Square Enix special patented technology : drag and drop items on the UI to equip them!
- 2012 special feature: Now possible to jump with characters AND mounts!

Seriously, all that stuff means A LOT to us , as legacy players (and I loved the video). But it means absolutely nothing to the average MMO player out there.

These players will be more appealed to the smoothness of the game, the "FF" feeling it convey (chocobos, moogle, known jobs...), the graphics and lightning effects. But please the UI? SE didn't reinvent the wheel.

[neorei]

Already posted it on 3 forum + any facebook groups i joined from ffxi, wow, tera, xiv ecc.

And the conclusion is always the same. They didn't know that the game was showed, or sad thing, they didn't know that the game is being rebuild from 0.

I did my facebook, my FFXI sever, killing iffy, twitter, you name it i'm doing it up

[Lux_Rayna]

Well, yes i'm angry, because if SE marketing will continue in this closed mind way:

I'm sorry to say but the game will fail to bring old and new customer.
And me, and the curren't player base absolutly don't want this.

Your english is really good ^^ pleasure to read.

Course now I have to say I completely disagree with all the complaining for a lot of reasons. Firstly, advertising is expensive. It's not cheap, it's not free, and there's no guarantee you'll get that return on investment. Secondly, there's little reason to advertise when you have a pretty strong core playerbase already. Thirdly, no amount of ad-campaigning is going to change anyone's mind about FFXIV. Fact is they already LOST everyone's trust after producing that failure of a launch. Do you really think a bunch of flashy ads, limited gameplay footage, and a bunch of promises are going to mean anything to anybody?? No. Plus going on a big media campaign is just ASKING for all the cynical, no-life, d-bags to look for any reason to trash the game and prove that they were right about it the first time. In other words, it's potential suicide. After a really bad launch the best thing you can do is fly under the radar and let word of mouth take care of the rest.

Making a big show of it is like pouring blood into shark-infested waters. All those disgruntled video game pencil pushers will jump on your so-called "new" product and publicly rip it to shreds.


SE actually knows what they are doing here. It would be stupid to walk right back out into the spotlight that torched you..especially when you have share prices to worry about.

EDIT: For those who dont know, SE's share prices took a HUGE hit after FFXIV's bad launch last year. And for those who dont know, news can have a huge impact on a company's share prices. In other words, its best to keep FFXIV out of major news, otherwise they risk another big drop if things don't start off very smoothly.