Imagine criticising a marketing strategy for something you and others literally haven't stopped talking about.

They could have just shown the E3 trailer and gone quiet for a year and it'd still be hyped.

Just now, Theboot100 said:

Errrrrr.

Im not sure how much game development youve been involved in or followed.  There PR has been outstanding and i would say on par if not better than with any other game at a pre release stage of the development cycle.

Since announcing it there has been weekly announcements, road map updates, screen shots and discovery series videos.  How many other games do you know of in an alpha state that are releasing stuff weekly.

Why release videos of things that are obviously still in development? That's bad PR

 

I don't say that their PR was bad, I even said it was a superb plan. and the EP series was remarkable.  And it is. Except of one thing, it generated a need for leaks and worse, it made them a success because they didn't want to address the need. 

You say that releasing early videos would be bad PR. Your opinion, I beg to disagree. When you are faced with a threat (in this case the threat of leaks) you try to manage it you don't ignore it. BTW , the FS20 team has been forthcoming to show a lot of flaws of the alpha.

 

 

Edited June 22, 20205 yr by Dominique_K

Just now, HiFlyer said:

 ..

You think they are not annoyed as well by the leaks? And just as determined to stop them?

What I say is, as far as I know, MS is in charge of the PR and marketing not Asobo.  

12 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

What I say is, as far as I know, MS is in charge of the PR and marketing not Asobo.  

You may be right of course, but I'm a little doubtful. Microsoft has not to my knowledge shown all that much marketing prowess recently. In fact, off of the top of my head, I can't even remember any recent Microsoft games.

I suspect what we're seeing, is mostly asobo

2 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

You may be right of course, but I'm a little doubtful. Microsoft has not to my knowledge shown all that much marketing prowess recently. In fact, off of the top of my head, I can't even remember any recent Microsoft games.

I suspect what we're seeing, is mostly asobo

I don’t think that’s true. The weekly updates are always signed off MSFS Team.

 

Hey, ChaoticBeauty!

Thank you for all that you do.

– MSFS TEAM

 

1 minute ago, Carts85 said:

I don’t think that’s true. The weekly updates are always signed off MSFS Team.

 

Hey, ChaoticBeauty!

Thank you for all that you do.

– MSFS TEAM

 

Again, you could be right. Whenever I've seen that however, I automatically think asobo. They and the partners are the face of this effort, to me.

I have the feeling that the content is all Asobo, but it has to go through Microsoft to be assembled and posted. Considering how late the development updates are being posted, Asobo are probably compiling and sending the information to one or more community managers in the US who are then creating the updates and posting them. The time they're being posted seems too late for France.

Regarding the marketing, I think they've done an incredible job with nearly all the development updates and the Feature Discovery series (many other developers are mostly silent between a game's announcement and its release, in here this is the exception rather than the rule), and personally I'm not really longing for leaks (except maybe for the UI, but they've covered that more extensively with the last few episodes) and did not even check out the latest ones. The only thing that feels off is the website which is not very friendly towards newcomers to the game or the franchise (a recent thread in here is proof of this), and is also plagued by connection and log-in issues. Microsoft really need to step up in this regard (an updated Media section and a list of the features and what's new would be a massive improvement).

Edited June 22, 20205 yr by ChaoticBeauty

Just now, ChaoticBeauty said:

 

Regarding the marketing, I think they've done an incredible job with nearly all the development updates  

The only thing that feels off is the website which is not very friendly towards newcomers to the game or the franchise (a recent thread in here is proof of this), and is also plagued by connection and log-in issues. Microsoft really need to step up in this regard (an updated Media section and a list of the features and what's new would be a massive improvement).

They may have done a great job (an opinion that I mostly share)  but there were leaks and, to add insult to injury, the leaks are very popular (a fact).  To the point where the whole Avsim membership is busy learning Chinese 🤣 !

The website is indeed subpar, confusing, unfriendly, slow and with an erratic access. Been said many times by me and others without any change.

I thought Microsoft may have been able to identify the miscreant Chinese leaker by their Courchevel landing score?
In the leaked video where they make a really nice landing at Courchevel, their score comes up, and it is: 1107785 PTS!
If they identify them that way, then presumably they wouldn't have to put more moving watermarks into the games/sim's screen?
Did they think of that?😉

16 minutes ago, seamaster55 said:

identify the miscreant Chinese leaker

It's not just one, there's four Chinese leakers that I know about.

34 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

They may have done a great job (an opinion that I mostly share)  but there were leaks and, to add insult to injury, the leaks are very popular (a fact).  To the point where the whole Avsim membership is busy learning Chinese 🤣 !

It was only to be expected that stuff would be leaked, with some people managing to hack the watermarks away, but I still think that the leaks only exist because they can, and not because of Asobo's community content being insubstantial (which is not). The only worthwhile footage was the hangar video and the graphics settings menu in my opinion, the rest is mostly poor flying being captured with mediocre quality. The official footage is a lot more watchable and the tester screenshots prove that the same graphics can be attained on today's consumer systems, so I'm not sure why these leaks have become so popular.

1 minute ago, MatthewS said:

It's not just one, there's four Chinese leakers that I know about.

Oh.

I didn't know that, thought there was just one.

Or maybe its one, but them using several identity's on bilibili?

1 minute ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

so I'm not sure why these leaks have become so popular

because the official footage comes out so infrequently, unlike the leaks.

3 minutes ago, seamaster55 said:

Oh.

I didn't know that, thought there was just one.

Or maybe its one, but them using several identity's on bilibili?

Maybe, but I doubt it... It's not like the Chinese leakers have to worry about being sued, no jurisdiction... and anyway the Chinese are happy to steal the west's IP, so they don't care about a NDA.

Edited June 22, 20205 yr by MatthewS

I think there have been six noteworthy leakers so far including;

We had the very first one with a bloke who actually had him in his gaming chair playing the game on camera in the bottom left of his own vid DOH!

ICE-SAMA with his hangar video and gusty conditions ones. STUDIO with his appalling handling of the 747-800. Then we had the Courcheval and A320 STALL videos from another.

And a couple of more recent ones - one of which The Redding RC Club is very, very good. But he's gone now so I guess busted.

All have been nabbed by MS I think as their individual uploads have abruptly stopped after a few vids.

Edited June 22, 20205 yr by Will Fly For Cheese