[Matt Fletcher]

Marketing is a lot more complex than that...it's a lot more than how to make the brand sell it's self and retain quality so that your customers respect the brand. One key aspect your forgetting about how marketing works is that it needs to get infectious, and you have to keep your Evangelist in the loop or your product falls on it's face. Let's bring up Evangelist for a second, evangelism is how you infect the market. The hardcoe gamers are the ones that will get other people to play the game. If we, the hardcoe gamers are not on board with what the company is doing you can't expand the market. What if all of us said your game svcks, as in ALL of us and the hardcoe reviewers did as well? Bugs aside that's like taking a sledgehammer down. A company CAN'T survive with out it's evangelist to spread the infection.

Yes! Marketing is far more complex than this, and a forum for video game speculation could never even touch the surface and nor could all elements ever be addressed...

So to your point of the evangelist, I think that BGS has a pretty solid base of hardcoe fans that aren't "in the loop" and I highly doubt whatever their next project is will "fall on its face".

My point was in regards to marketing strategies there are ways in which you can sell more of a current product, or launch a new and successful product from an existing product line. They are just marketing options to increase revenue. This is nothing against the hardcoe fanbase, as BGS actually does a much better job for their fans than many companies do (these well regulated forums are a fine example).

[Dorian Cozens]

Yes! Marketing is far more complex than this, and a forum for video game speculation could never even touch the surface and nor could all elements ever be addressed...

So to your point of the evangelist, I think that BGS has a pretty solid base of hardcoe fans that aren't "in the loop" and I highly doubt whatever their next project is will "fall on its face".

My point was in regards to marketing strategies there are ways in which you can sell more of a current product, or launch a new and successful product from an existing product line. They are just marketing options to increase revenue. This is nothing against the hardcoe fanbase, as BGS actually does a much better job for their fans than many companies do (these well regulated forums are a fine example).

hahaha, I love your sarcastic undertone while making a point

No, I agree but I think they are on the right track, and they actually could to some pretty good stuff. Let's just think of it this way, ZeniMax is clearly next generation focused as we can now just see them expanding. So far, they have done no wrong and I hope they continue to expand and create new IP. I would love a new elder scrolls game though .

[Vicki Gunn]

New podcast out NAO. http://www.bethblog.com/podcast/

Anything interesting (relating to this thread)? I don't really care about Rage, so not gonna listen to it if 'secret project' or something similar isn't mentioned.

[CORY]

Anything interesting (relating to this thread)? I don't really care about Rage, so not gonna listen to it if 'secret project' or something similar isn't mentioned.

Rage and something about level designing (not specific tho) nothing on the new game

[IsAiah AkA figgy]

Rage and something about level designing (not specific tho) nothing on the new game

That's what I figured. They'd probably write it in the description if they were gonna say anything of signifiance - but sometimes the people on this forum read valuable stuff in off-hand things they say, so thought there might be a chance now too.
Anyone had the time to read the newsletter?


(edit: i'm writing on an economics paper for school, so shouldn't really be on tha internetz at all )

[x_JeNnY_x]

Well, they've still haven't got Pete Hines to get on the pod cast:P

[Ellie English]

Marketing is a lot more complex than that...it's a lot more than how to make the brand sell it's self and retain quality so that your customers respect the brand. One key aspect your forgetting about how marketing works is that it needs to get infectious, and you have to keep your Evangelist in the loop or your product falls on it's face. Let's bring up Evangelist for a second, evangelism is how you infect the market. The hardcoe gamers are the ones that will get other people to play the game. If we, the hardcoe gamers are not on board with what the company is doing you can't expand the market. What if all of us said your game svcks, as in ALL of us and the hardcoe reviewers did as well? Bugs aside that's like taking a sledgehammer down. A company CAN'T survive with out it's evangelist to spread the infection.


I'm CS and ]part of the job at the company I work for is marketing research.

Precisely. A company needs to please their hardcoe fans unless they want a bad rep. They will also have broader content to appeal to a wider range of gamers, but they will not forget the fans.

[Brian Newman]

Marketing is a lot more complex than that...it's a lot more than how to make the brand sell it's self and retain quality so that your customers respect the brand. One key aspect your forgetting about how marketing works is that it needs to get infectious, and you have to keep your Evangelist in the loop or your product falls on it's face. Let's bring up Evangelist for a second, evangelism is how you infect the market. The hardcoe gamers are the ones that will get other people to play the game. If we, the hardcoe gamers are not on board with what the company is doing you can't expand the market. What if all of us said your game svcks, as in ALL of us and the hardcoe reviewers did as well? Bugs aside that's like taking a sledgehammer down. A company CAN'T survive with out it's evangelist to spread the infection.


I'm CS and ]part of the job at the company I work for is marketing research.

You need to take into account the fact that this industry has a very capable "evangelism" system built-in. Gaming media is part and parcel of the business, and magazines and blogs can reach a much larger audience than a devoted fan base. Keep in mind that these publications (which write the reviews that can make or break a game) receive revenues for ad space intended to spread the word, and you have a well-oiled PR machine.

[Colton Idonthavealastna]

You need to take into account the fact that this industry has a very capable "evangelism" system built-in. Gaming media is part and parcel of the business, and magazines and blogs can reach a much larger audience than a devoted fan base. Keep in mind that these publications (which write the reviews that can make or break a game) receive revenues for ad space intended to spread the word, and you have a well-oiled PR machine.

Well, I didn't really want to go into detail as this thread isn't really marketing 101 your right but even though it's "built in" so to is bad word of mouth which can still hurt the title. Medal of Honor got luke a warm response and still managed to do fairly well selling over a million unites but in this case their hype hurt them and word of mouth saved them. It's a careful balance of what to do and what not to do, the reason why an mmo hasn't taken down wow? Perhaps it's because every next one get's hyped up to wow killer status by it's loyal fanbase before the game comes out. I agree however in that Magazines are an excellent way to reach the target audience. Though news sites such as IGN, Game Spot, Game Informer and Game Trailers are basically hype trains as well. This is the industry were hype matters most, even more so than perhaps movies. Let's take into account that Spike shows the VGA awards so when looking at a place to announce a title anything during that time period gets massive hype. Though to get to the point, it's not really built in, everything needs hype, pull and quality. Call of Duty and Halo have several things going for them, relatively good quality, massive hype, and legions of brainwashed fans my self included. I'll simply buy it because it's a Call of Duty game, yeah I'm a svcker. Though if those first COD games didn't get wide spread attention and good word of mouth they would be in the toilet.

[Karen anwyn Green]

Well, I didn't really want to go into detail as this thread isn't really marketing 101 your right but even though it's "built in" so to is bad word of mouth which can still hurt the title. Medal of Honor got luke a warm response and still managed to do fairly well selling over a million unites but in this case their hype hurt them and word of mouth saved them. It's a careful balance of what to do and what not to do, the reason why an mmo hasn't taken down wow? Perhaps it's because every next one get's hyped up to wow killer status by it's loyal fanbase before the game comes out. I agree however in that Magazines are an excellent way to reach the target audience. Though news sites such as IGN, Game Spot, Game Informer and Game Trailers are basically hype trains as well. This is the industry were hype matters most, even more so than perhaps movies. Let's take into account that Spike shows the VGA awards so when looking at a place to announce a title anything during that time period gets massive hype. Though to get to the point, it's not really built in, everything needs hype, pull and quality. Call of Duty and Halo have several things going for them, relatively good quality, massive hype, and legions of brainwashed fans my self included. I'll simply buy it because it's a Call of Duty game, yeah I'm a svcker. Though if those first COD games didn't get wide spread attention and good word of mouth they would be in the toilet.

the point is that if u like it why nt buy it. like cod as u say. people even brainwashed they love it. so these make the standar playerbase for it. but isnt that also happening in our occasion?

[Pete Schmitzer]

The thing is though to build a world the size of Oblivion which I guessing thats how large TESV will be takes time (around 2 to 2.5 yrs depending on how fast they do it) especially if you want to get it right and not have bugs that make you fall through the map. If they started working on it after they updated their technology about Dec 09 and also while they were updating the Tech they also probably had a seperate division coming up with the storyline, gameplay and pretty much anything else thats needed for TESV. I'm guessing we will hear an announcement about the game in March of 2011 with a release date of either Oct 2011 or the holidays of 2011.

I'm gonna guess and say that Bethesda has already came up with the main storyline for TESV, has most of the gameplay ideas that they want done, most of the city design done, and has picked an area for TESV to occur (I'm guessing Skyrim because of the trademark that was filed or Summerset Isle because of the natural game barriers and the mystery of the Isle). The only thing I'm thinking they need to do is draw it up and create the world.

To me its just a matter of time before Bethesda tells us what their secret project that they are working on is. Maybe we'll here about it at the VGA's (Not Likely) or later on like March. To me the March announcement is perfect because of E3 they can show it off their and everybodys going to be like OMG ITS ELDERS SCROLLS ITS AWESOME AND AMAZING OMG.

[danni Marchant]

I definetly think it's past half way complete now. I mean, we know they started work on putting content into the game start of 2010. Team of 90 people working on building a world for nearly a year? Bound to have alot done so far.

[Kristian Perez]

Well, I know that not much news has been leaked about TES V. Though we've all been waiting for quite some time.. And I haven't been back here for quite some time... But, there is an article back from ( http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fullstory.php?id=162212 ) April that raised some interest for me, though I do not hold it to be true... It says that the title has been announced and that it is to be developed by "Armor Games", I personally find this absolutely ridiculous and incredible.... What are your thoughts?

[Evaa]

So was there anything worthwhile in the new Bethesda Podcast?

[Chelsea Head]

Well, I know that not much news has been leaked about TES V. Though we've all been waiting for quite some time.. And I haven't been back here for quite some time... But, there is an article back from ( http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fullstory.php?id=162212 ) April that raised some interest for me, though I do not hold it to be true... It says that the title has been announced and that it is to be developed by "Armor Games", I personally find this absolutely ridiculous and incredible.... What are your thoughts?

Look at the date . . . April 1st . . . April Fool's day . . . It was a prank, dude. But tons of people fell for it anyways, despit its ridiculousness.

[Rhi Edwards]

Look at the date . . . April 1st . . . April Fool's day . . . It was a prank, dude. But tons of people fell for it anyways, despit its ridiculousness.

Well, I personally feel very good right now... lol :clap: . I've seen the date multiple times, but it just never sunk in... Well, thanks anyway :foodndrink:. Even still, the fact that they even put Armor Games on there sort of pissed me off... lol.

[Juan Cerda]

Well, I personally feel very good right now... lol :clap: . I've seen the date multiple times, but it just never sunk in... Well, thanks anyway :foodndrink:. Even still, the fact that they even put Armor Games on there sort of pissed me off... lol.

just be glad Antibody hasn't seen your post (yet).

He gets.... angry. :/

[BlackaneseB]

just be glad Antibody hasn't seen your post (yet).

He gets.... angry. :/

Awe, and why is this...? :thumbsdown:

[Devils Cheek]

just be glad Antibody hasn't seen your post (yet).

He gets.... angry. :/

Hah I lol'd. So true :3

I also find amusing how many fell into that prank

[Britney Lopez]

Let's also remember that when people are so shocked at a team of 90 people I think they actually had a team of 80 people working on fall out 3 so it's not to much of a huge difference so they really only hired on 10 more people and that could be into any department. .

[Kelvin Diaz]

Awe, and why is this...? :thumbsdown:

Meh, just Antibody being Antibody. I think more people fell for that than Bethesda anticipated (if they devised the prank), so don't feel bad.

[Britta Gronkowski]

Lets try to keep this on topic and not worry about rumors that have been proven true. I'm not trying to mini mod just giving a heads up so that the mods don't swing their axes at us.

Also Bethesda isn't going to allow their employees to sit on their thumbs and play Oblivion all day. Trust me they are working on their project which I'm hoping its Elder Scrolls V.

[Tyler F]

Lets try to keep this on topic and not worry about rumors that have been proven true. I'm not trying to mini mod just giving a heads up so that the mods don't swing their axes at us.

Also Bethesda isn't going to allow their employees to sit on their thumbs and play Oblivion all day. Trust me they are working on their project which I'm hoping its Elder Scrolls V.

we all hope that xD

[victoria johnstone]

The whole shipwreck cover reveal has me rather confused, especially since GI hasn't seen fit to send me the latest issue. The December issue features the top 30 characters of the last decade. Is the January issue the shipwreck? And if so, does that mean the soonest we could get a GI cover would be the February issue?

For the record, I don't think the VGA announcement hypothesis holds much water. It would be very uncharacteristic of BGS to announce it on that sort of platform. Obviously there's the chance that they adopt new strategies for the opportunity to appeal to a wider audience, but why fix what ain't broken?

[Claire Lynham]

The whole shipwreck cover reveal has me rather confused, especially since GI hasn't seen fit to send me the latest issue. The December issue features the top 30 characters of the last decade. Is the January issue the shipwreck? And if so, does that mean the soonest we could get a GI cover would be the February issue?

For the record, I don't think the VGA announcement hypothesis holds much water. It would be very uncharacteristic of BGS to announce it on that sort of platform. Obviously there's the chance that they adopt new strategies for the opportunity to appeal to a wider audience, but why fix what ain't broken?

The way magazine month-stamps work is this. In a given month, the magazine released has the month-stamp of the next month. For example, in March, magazines released will say "April".

This is so that newsstands can sell a magazine released in March before the next issue is released.

To help explain this further, imagine you go pick up a magazine on April 13th, and that magazine's new issues are always released on the 15th of a given month. By labeling newly released issues with the next month's name, they will sell you an issue labeled "April" even though it was released in March.

So basically, just wait until December 6th like the picture said. That's when they'll release the new cover.

Frankly, I think it's Uncharted 3.