I think it's pretty telling that the ad is a mount you have to buy, rather than a feature you get to earn. That ad feels like "buy the game so you can buy stuff in the game" vs. "buy the game so you can play the game". Personally, if I got into the game, went out of my way to buy it and the DLC, only to find out I couldn't get the mounts there through gameplay, I'd be pretty irked.

And even the language "Tame your favorite mount" - that's not a game mechanic. Why not advertise the actual feature of "train your mount for 180 days, one level at a time, one day at a time"? Maybe there's not a good way to market that to make that "feature" sound attractive.

I got into ESO because of the exploration and TES feel of the game. So to answer the question, I'd market the game's exploration and earnable content (which is mostly in base game, odd). If it's hard for marketing to come up with materials in that vein, then maybe something needs to change.

Wow that is... wow.

I'm no marketer but I feel the best way to be abandon the "play how you want" mantra and just treat the game as what it is: an MMO that's set in Tamriel. Advertise trials, dungeons, battlegrounds, imperial city, cyrodiil, generally how the gameplay feels, and the expansive world that you can only explore in ESO and TES1: Arena. People who are into TES probably don't care about the newest DLC location set on some island hardly anyone's heard of (or no one, in this year's case). They'd be more enticed by going to Summerset or Valenwood or Elsweyr or High Rock.

What does ESO have that modded mainline games don't? Interesting mounts isn't one of them. I can mod Skyrim for that... for free.

It's important to remember that for ZOS, Crown store is the real content. Why spend massive amount of time making zone content, cool events, good quests? Doesn't bring in half as much as their beloved Crown Store. Every year is crown store year. Increase shareholder value.

Before asking "how would you market X?" one should ask "to whom you'd want to market X?"

Marketing strategies need to be adapted depending on the type of people you want as your target.
For example, Gacha gamers would be attracted by the crown crates and their items, while someone else would despise an advert of such practice.
So it really depends who you want in your game - Oblivion and Skyrim trailers had a clear target audience, and they worked great.

Today, the type of audience for the original Elder Scrolls games is not looked that much fondly by companies because other audiences invest much more money.
Still, OG Elder Scrolls audience is useful because they are people willing to invest their entire life In a franchise.
Sad truth is no company can live eternally aiming at "nostalgic players" because said players, sooner or later, "get extinct".

These days it feels like much more is in the hands (demands) of Microsoft rather than this game's developers.
Microsoft value profit over anything - we will likely see a marketing heavily targeted to "make money", instead of other deeper and more appealing aspects of the game such as world building and lore.

Personally? Just wishful thinking but I would like a return to emphasize what Oblivion and Skyrim trailer did well, in the case of ESO adding just the multiplayer element - "Skyrim with friends" would go such a long way IMO.
But who am I to know anything about new generations...

YOU BELONG.

TOGETHER.

👎

While that ad doesn't appeal to me, it's not like it's the only one they sent out. In October alone, I got 8 "newsletters" (3 from Bethesda, 5 from Zenimax/ESO) and in those 5 days of November until today, I got another 2 from Zenimax/ESO. I do find that a little excessive. The thing they advertised most right now were the Wall event, Solstice story Part 2, Witches Fest.

KalevaLaine wrote: »

More offline advertising.
In 2014 I saw a poster in the subway here in Germany. But never ever spotted stuff in game stores or electronic markets.

They actually did that around ESO's original release when there was still the idea of PvP as the endgame activity. One of Berlin's biggest electronic stores had some throne standing around with some stuff about "Become Tamriel's next emperor". I'm not sure if it drew anyone's attention, to be honest.

I think I'd probably keep much of the same strategy except, I'd probably lean for a bit less of a modern vibe and a bit less magic. I might try to ensure I have a bit more coordination between marketing and the development team to ensure things don't end up too far off or overselling too much.

Well, the question is: Whom does one want to market to? Focussing on PvP in marketing, for example, wouldn't make much sense if there's barely PvP content; and focussing on story content might make less sense if there are no plans for new stories (although ouf course total newbies would still have a lot of story content to play until they've seen everytthing).

So in the end how they market the game might very much show us their idea of how they want to develop this game in future. Though of course one ad alone doesn't say much, one needs to look at the bigger picture.

From what we've seen this year and last year, they do emphasize the "community" aspect quite a lot.

Massive medieval fantasy PvP is what brought me here……

We’re lost.

Bethesda has a newsletter?

shadyjane62 wrote: »

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