The Marketing of AH - Ideas on how to increase player base

[caldera]

Someone jokingly remarked about marketing to AARP.  That's actually a good idea as older folks might be more interested in AH than WOW.  Marketing especially to veterans for obvious reasons as well.  The free EW arena idea might work but planes like the Hurricane and others need a remodel if you're going to showcase them.  HTC is investing in more terrain eye candy with the coming update, which is a good thing.  But quite a few of the older model planes look very out of date compared to even models from years ago.  The casual gamer will not be impressed with those AH1 era planes.

[jimson]

Someone jokingly remarked about marketing to AARP.  That's actually a good idea as older folks might be more interested in AH than WOW.

I was only partially joking.

Retirees are increasingly computer savvy and I would guess the core audience of the history and military channel are 50 plus.

Perhaps HTC should offer a small senior discount.

Might boost up the daytime numbers anyway.

[Scca]

...Offer the Early War Free....

I would SO go there and perkfarm...

[jimson]

I would SO go there and perkfarm...

Clubbing baby seals, hmmm, might not help bring in subscribers.

[Scca]

Clubbing baby seals, hmmm, might not help bring in subscribers.

Like that doesn't already happen.  Getting clubbed and wanting to be the club is what keeps me coming back.

AH isn't for the "99%, I get a trophy for showing up crowd". It takes work to get good. Thank God we still have something that works that way.

[bustr]

Any free arena would become a narcasistic freeloader driven dysfunctional representation of the MA. And as SCCA just warned, the place where the most dysfunctional paying members of the MA would abuse the potential new customers for the sake of their own greed and small egos. The latter easily can be controlled by only allowing trainers access to a free arena to represent the MA culture. The former was only controlled by HTC eliminating the free H2H arenas thus kicking the bums out on their freeloading narcasistic posteriors.

If Aces High were the other games it would not be Aces High. Aces High is not a safe game for weak egos. You cannot trade cheat codes, purchase mods or pay someone to mine status for you. There are very few safe places in the game unless you like paying $15 a month to hide out near the HQ and play by yourself. You have to be euphemistically the same kind of kid who plays sandlot tackle football in a T-Shirt and doesn't mind getting hurt to enjoy the game to it's fullest.

So just like the Marine's you will only get a few who are naturaly oriented with tough egos. It's not fair, and the game is not fair, unless you want to kill the game and the heart of why Aces High is not any of the other games. Marketing is too often lieing to people with weak egos to take advantage of that fact. Laying down a trail of lies to boost a Mark's ego just long enough to get his money is throwing away money in bad feelings and bad person to person PR on the Internet over time.

How do you market playing tackle football in an empty lot with no pads and fewer rules?

[Dead Man Flying]

I agree with Bustr.  I have no reason to believe that a free arena would work out any differently than free H2H, which for the most part was not a success.

I'm not sure how many remember free H2H, but in my personal experience it was usually filled with griefing chest thumpers.  I'd venture that H2H chased as many people from the game as it attracted paying subscribers.  It also served as a free laboratory for trying out hacks, cheats, and exploits.  I imagine the amount of effort required to oversee the "free" H2H just wasn't worth HTC's effort.

I'd focus more on retention than marketing.  The best way to hook someone, IMO, is to offer some basic off-line tutorials that detail controller setup, takeoff, landing, basic flight maneuvers, and a rundown of the view system.  Some background on the planes might be nice too.  For example, if you bring up a P-51D, you get a brief paragraph or two history of it, its years of operation, its capabilities, etc at the selection screen.  Unfortunately, I'm sure that adding such functionality would unacceptably increase download sizes.

[Scca]

And as SCCA just warned, the place where the most dysfunctional paying members of the MA would abuse the potential new customers for the sake of their own greed and small egos.

Ouch!

[Shuffler]

Someone jokingly remarked about marketing to AARP.  That's actually a good idea as older folks might be more interested in AH than WOW.  Marketing especially to veterans for obvious reasons as well.  The free EW arena idea might work but planes like the Hurricane and others need a remodel if you're going to showcase them.  HTC is investing in more terrain eye candy with the coming update, which is a good thing.  But quite a few of the older model planes look very out of date compared to even models from years ago.  The casual gamer will not be impressed with those AH1 era planes.

No AARP would be terrible. That is just a politcal organization. In the short time I was a member they sent nothing but political vote for this and vote for that. Always something to do with handouts.

They made a lot of folks mad evidently because the folks leaving AARP even made the news back then. I was one of the folks who left.

We do not need more folks in game ranting their politics.

[MoJoRiZn]

As HTC already knows Marketing takes a multiple pronged attack.

Over my 27 years as a self employed businessman I have lived with marketing,  I'm volunteering this as what I see as a good approach.


Those paid TV adds hit the target market for sure. Lets not forget the absence of AH on SIM HQ This is a venue AH needs to be in.
  Anything and any sim worth its salt
has a forum or advertises there.  http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/category/25/Air_Combat_Civil_Aviation.html
main
http://www.simhq.com/

If you were going to give a free arena
why not the AVA? It delivers more of a sampling of all the aircraft at variety of icon ranges with well balanced plane sets and a variety of terrains.
 Or better yet HTC can quickly set up a free arena with the settings he sees fit..
for those that want to taste even more from there. Still keep the two week free trial option available


The Idea behind this is many players in other flight sims don't like the MA model
because of the mixed plane sets ect. This isn't a criticism it just a fact. I know of many in other sims that don't join AH because of that.

AH's competition isn't war birds
its il2 and Rise of flight. that is a very big market. Its also a more mature market with more disposable income.
 Allowing the custom arenas to develop 24/7 dedicated servers would help draw in a market share that currently is absent

well years back AH did have advertisements on SimHQ and as TequilaChaser pointed out in the aces high for xmas thread, alot of the air combat articles written and posted at the simHQ link

http://www.simhq.com/_air/acc_library.html   were written using aces high as its backdrop  Andy Bush and Crenshaw and badboy all wrote articles and training lectures regarding aces high along with some other flight sims like lomac and il2

I am reposting this because TC posted he originally meant to post the following in this topic

I do not understand why so many on these boards thinks that the player base is so low.........

how do any of you come to that conclusion? do any of you have actual facts and documents to back up what you are claiming?

when I log in to the arenas, I see hundreds of new names / people, along with the old players that have always been around that came here from AW, WB, FA, wwiionline .....

yes, I do know that less are playing than their was back in 2007/2008 but the whole world went thru nd some of the world still is going through economical hard times...

but can any of you explain why i see hundreds of new people/names ingame on the roster ( and probably 70 to 80 % of them have not even joined or posted to the AH BBS )

some of you posting in this thread are all doom and gloom and act like AH is dieing off, yet when I look at the ingame roster in the different arenas I see the exact opposite of what some of you are posting here....

anyhows....... this same type of thread always pops up on this bbs at least once a year if not 2 or 3 times........

as for SimHQ, yes their is no forum over there for AH, but AH is well represented ( albeit they are older articles ), AH is well represented in the SimHQ Air Combat corner Library..... a lot of the articles in this SimHQ section is written based on Aces High Game play, etc......  although it would be nice to see some new articles regarding Aces high over there ( hint hint, Badboy ROFL )

take of those rose colored glasses each of you are looking through from yesteryear !  Aces high is still rolling along as it has always done..... someof you are just growing long in the tooth ( meaning you been here awhile and you are getting older and senile LOL )

those other online combat sim MMO's have to spend thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for advertisement to get their game out in view of the public eye. some of the companies have over a hundred employees on staff trying to design the game ( to me this brings more buggy software in my personal view ),  Aces high has done well with very little advertisement , and always remember word of mouth is always the best advertisement.......

<S>

TC

The Topic link  > Who got Aces High for Xmas?  http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,325890.0.html

funny thing I have noticed looking at all the different flight gaming forums and requests, is that alot of what aces high has now or has developed you see the others wishing for it or for examples  the new world of planes are wishing to have air races like aces high has the extreme racing league. you see them requesting for different options like aces high currently offers to be designed to put into their game.  You can watch what is typed here or posted here, then go to the WOP forum and it will soon pop up there as a request or suggestion. As hitech posted in this thread already how they did the pricing evaluations and research and then the others followed suit shortly after. now this is not just about aces high and users at world of planes requesting the same. this applys to all the other flight sims as well, including fighter ace and war birds 3 and the later patches for il2 and others.

what is funny is seeing some of the players on this forum, who are in a way vocal here, show up at some new up and coming online flight game and start talking crap yet they never post such drivel here on these boards. if you have a problem or do not like something why go to another flight sim and be all negative, why not express your concerns to the developers of this current game you have played in for 3 4 5 or more years?  you look silly to everyone when you show up making posts like that on another sims forum

the players will always want more or want something different, hitech and company has always had a good finger on the pulse of their labor of love. They always read these threads to learn what everyone is thinking and the different opinions, they may even sometimes post in them. but you have to realize  hitech and pyro are now the grand fathers of multiplayer online world war II combat flight sims since air warrior has long since been gone

they know exactly what direction their next step needs to be, and remember what is posted on the aces high website

HiTech Creations was founded with a simple philosophy by Dale "HiTech" Addink in 1999.  It's not to create a large corporation, a vast gaming network, or a line of online games.  It's just to create one game, but one that is better than any other like it.  Contrary to most companies, our goal is to keep the company small.  We know that with a singular focus and an experienced cohesive team that enjoys its work, the production, service, support, and overall level of satisfaction will be unmatched.

why is everyone wanting to make aces high into something like WoW or WOT or the next overly populated laggy unplayable unsocialable  rpg or mmo. that is not what htc wants or desires. most here do not want that either to be honest


sincerely,
MoJo

[killb8]

 I had an idea, it came to me when I was watching "Enemy at the Gates" when the Generals adjunct says "Let them have their hero's sir". An annual World Championship complete with prize money advertised in a challenging way on G4TV and at gaming conventions. Probably beyond the budget it would be sweet to see a commercial that begins with the words "So you think you can game huh?
I know in my heart that if top tier elite gamers had any idea what a challenge this game is they would flock to us and never look back.

[james]

Saw 530 players on last night in the LW arena. Someone is doing something right somewhere. 

[TOMCAT21]

HTC Staff Bobble head dolls.

[rvflyer]

IMHO it has been all downhill since they they split the MA. That's when I and a bunch of other people left the game. I remember glorious 600+ player battles. AH should go back to that...

Well seems it is better than that, there are over 700 players in tonight 12/30/2011, Kind if shoots your theory down right? 

[Lusche]

Well seems it is better than that, there are over 700 players in tonight 12/30/2011, Kind if shoots your theory down right? 

Actually you both are wrong to some extend. The numbers went substantially up  after the arena split (2006), peaking 2007-2008. But today they are lower than even before the split. Must be for different reasons then