Battleborn players are coming together to help save the game

[ryanmahaffe]

Woah, thats pretty cool

I wish one of my main communities (wildstar) would do that.

[Edge-]

Woah, thats pretty cool

I wish one of my main communities (wildstar) would do that.

They did around the Steam launch. A large group of the folks from the subreddit switched over to the Steam client to bump up its numbers and they worked to put out community made guides/videos etc. around that time as well.

It's just that unlike Gearbox, I don't think Carbine even acknowledged the community effort : /

[dope_danny]

Woah, thats pretty cool

I wish one of my main communities (wildstar) would do that.

They did, but if the game isn't on a free weekend 99% of people go "i've got to buy it and its this dead?, pass". Wildstar just has a shit community team.

Well, i say team but isn't it like two or three people now running the community stuff for them?

[Lucetia]

Honestly think it's too little too late and Gearbox should just pack up and close the servers or make it free to play.

Hell, why would I try it for free when I could be playing Overwatch that I've already paid for.

Well I got it basically free from one of the Humble Bundles along with some cash and I still haven't tried. Probably should, but I just can't get my self to want and try it after watching videos and playing Overwatch too much.

[Edge-]

They did, but if the game isn't on a free weekend 99% of people go "i've got to buy it and its this dead?, pass". Wildstar just has a shit community team.

Well, i say team but isn't it like two or three people now running the community stuff for them?

Except that it's been F2P since late last year so there's no "free weekends" and nothing to buy : P

The game overall has a skeleton crew working on it, not sure if they even have a dedicated internal community manager even. I know NCsoft's worked on WildStar a bit (including posting the ever excellent, "We don't need to do any marketing around the Steam launch, Valve does all the marketing for you!" from ex-WoW CM whathisbutt) but honestly have no clue who's handling the game nowadays.

Though it's less an issue of the community team and more the marketing. Steam launch received a 3 sentence "press release" sent to media that didn't even include any links to videos or assets to download and there wasn't any kind of marketing spend until a few weeks after when they paid for a few youtubers to make videos and that largely appeared to be it : /

[ryanmahaffe]

Except that it's been F2P since late last year so there's no "free weekends" and nothing to buy : P

The game overall has a skeleton crew working on it, not sure if they even have a dedicated internal community manager even. I know NCsoft's worked on WildStar a bit (including posting the ever excellent, "We don't need to do any marketing around the Steam launch, Valve does all the marketing for you!" from ex-WoW CM whathisbutt) but honestly have no clue who's handling the game nowadays.

Though it's less an issue of the community team and more the marketing. Steam launch received a 3 sentence "press release" sent to media that didn't even include any links to videos or assets to download and there wasn't any kind of marketing spend until a few weeks after when they paid for a few youtubers to make videos and that largely appeared to be it : /

Ooh, and those videos came over a month after and were never featured on the steam page

And they only paid people to do like the first 10 levels of the game

Because when I decide if I want to get into an mmo, I look at the first 10 levels.

[Edge-]

Ooh, and those videos came over a month after and were never featured on the steam page

Wait, which video? >.>

The youtubber ones? I would hope they wouldn't upload those to Steam, I remember watching a few bits and strongly disliking them. Then again, I generally dislike youtubers/twitch streamers in general, so that's probably why.

Because I know they finally got around to uploading a few of the ones they put on Steam to their (Carbine/WildStars) Youtube page like 3 months after the Steam launch, which caused confusion for a lot of folks who thought it was a brand new video that was released out of the blue (myself included).

And they only paid people to do like the first 10 levels of the game

Because when I decide if I want to get into an mmo, I look at the first 10 levels.

Big name youtubers are expensive, dude. Like, super expensive. Like, tens of thousands of dollars for just one or two videos expensive if you pay them for sponsored content.

Ain't no way they can afford to pay for them to create content leveling to max level, and I doubt the Youtubers would want to do that unless the videos performed well for them. They can give them boosted characters and all, but that comes with its own set of challenges (community being mad that youtubers are treated "special", brand new folks with little in the way of MMO experience being completely lost at max level so creating terrible videos etc.)

The promotion they did is pretty standard for MMO companies and usually works pretty well. Just a mixture of so much bad news behind the game and terrible timing on when they paid to have them created : /

[dope_danny]

Except that it's been F2P since late last year so there's no "free weekends" and nothing to buy : P

The game overall has a skeleton crew working on it, not sure if they even have a dedicated internal community manager even. I know NCsoft's worked on WildStar a bit (including posting the ever excellent, "We don't need to do any marketing around the Steam launch, Valve does all the marketing for you!" from ex-WoW CM whathisbutt) but honestly have no clue who's handling the game nowadays.

Though it's less an issue of the community team and more the marketing. Steam launch received a 3 sentence "press release" sent to media that didn't even include any links to videos or assets to download and there wasn't any kind of marketing spend until a few weeks after when they paid for a few youtubers to make videos and that largely appeared to be it : /

The f2p is in regards to battleborn, as far as i can tell they didnt do a free weekend but just added cash shop stuff by the articles i've read. Compared that to Overwatch regularly doing free weekends and one gets people to try before they buy and the other looks like a monumentally small userbase begging others to join a sinking ship. But Wildstar also shows you need to promote the free experience as well, god knows how many times i saw comments going "it came out on steam? i thought it was dead" at the time.

A free demo and making sure that demo is known about can make or break games. Relying on the modern tribalism and quasi cult mentality of "silence the none believers, they are all hating trolls, sit in an insular bubble and hope the masses are watching and come to the defence of our brave vigil" was an object of ridicule back in the "tortanic" days of "its good those players left, that just made more room for even more 14 million by christmas!" and nowadays its just seen as one in a sea of games ranging from Umbrella Corps to no mans sky that are userbases in the triple figures if they are very lucky. Games are perceived to live or die nowadays in their first week and players are far more likely to avoid a game that appears to be heavily online leaning when it looks like a dead matchmaking screen simulator.

Its the snowball effect really. I'm not going to shit on Battleborn even if the art style looks gross for my tastes and the writing is typical Gearbox cringe, it could play very well. But that doesnt count for much in the public eye when an attempt to "save the game" sees less than 300 players and the game is known as "stillborn" online.

They could have just made it a free weekend, it might not have made the difference but at least that would have been something. A paywall to try a game thats considered as dead as No Mans Sky, Umbrella Corps or Titanfall 2 a month or two from now by the looks of things is such a bad choice for something that had nothing to lose and everything to gain and by the sounds of it is the most expensive thing the company has ever produced and is probably going to see layoffs if it tanks.

Though after this, duke nukem forever and aliens colonial marines i can only see them shitting out a borderlands sequel half finished to make some money at this point. Wouldn't be surprised to see pitchford have a breakdown over this, the guys been looking and acting like it for months.

[Edge-]

Ah, gotcha, misunderstood which game you were talking about : )

[dope_danny]

Welp, i was in game picking up some christmas gifts and every copy of Battleborn has been marked down to £2.99 on PS4 and Xbone, with multiple preorder bonus codes and cards filling the case to bursting. I picked one up just because but that doesn't look like the game stores are shifting any units at all anymore.

[Jester Joe]

Woah, thats pretty cool

I wish one of my main communities (wildstar) would do that.

It's easier to get 5 people to work together than 10 ;p

Joking aside, this thread alone highlights the major issue that happened with Battleborn. People are still thinking it's an Overwatch clone. Advertising it like one screwed them over.

Granted, I tried the demo and it was laggy as heck and borderline bland, but eh.