I played WOW. Really, I did. For about three levels. Then my hunter… yes, ‘hunter’… laid down, went to sleep and never woke again. My free trial had ended and I had no intention of forking over $15 a month to have my hunter’s head handed to me every time I tried to kill 10 of these or 20 of those. So I put my check in the “Tried It” box and returned to my first and true MMO love; Guild Wars.
Ah, like a loving and gracious wife, she welcomed me back with birthday presents, new events and the same gorgeous scenery and graphics that I feel head over heels for when I first met her. How could I ever leave her?!? She was ALWAYS there for me, ALWAYS giving to me, ALWAYS beautiful no matter how aged she was. And yet, something in the ads led me from her to try the popular girl that EVERYONE knew. (and yes, I mean ‘knew’)
It’s a story I hear all the time with my gaming buddies; We like a game and we think it’s cool, but we don’t want to pay for it. We spent a load of time in the free trial and now we think we’ve seen as much as we can see. Here’s a simple concept: if you give something away for free, it’s hard to convince people to pay for it. But if you charge full price up front, AND THEN give them everything they ever wanted, your customers become your extended sales force.
For example, I bought Guild Wars when it was new. I paid full price for every new chapter and I now have the entire series. But since there is NO MONTHLY FEE, I can drop in and out whenever I want. And especially now that the economy is so bad, I was laid off and forced to start my own company, it’s hard to know where the next mortgage payment is coming from. So to expect players to pay for something that they’ve been playing for free is ridiculous in my opinion.
If I don’t have the money to feed my family, I CERTAINLY don’t have the money to pay a monthly fee for your game. But if I already paid for a game, and your game is everything I ever loved in gaming, then I’m likely to tell all my friends, convince others that they should buy it, and play whenever I can to relieve stress. Since it costs me nothing more, I ‘m still hooked on it. Maybe even more so now that I have more free time. But if I want it to remain fun and exciting, I need to help bring more customers in.
So, online games developers need to take a cue from new media marketing: Let your best customers be your core sales force. If I’m in LOVE with the game, I won’t stop talking about it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and anywhere else I can find fellow gamers. Stop dumping money into ad campaigns that tease us with graphics and images we can only find in certain parts of the game. Rather focus your budget on improving the GAME ITSELF and crafting a completely original and satisfying experience that your players will want to come back to over and over. Let them sell your game, because they are your best ads.
