Steam Marketing

[BTPommyB]

The AH3 page on steam is really bad marketing.
It does not represent AH3 accurately.
It also says that the game is free. It isn't and you are annoying prospective players. You come across as  dodgy. Two weeks trial period does not mean free.
I suggest you take a good look at how you present AH3 on steam.

[Shuffler]

What do you do for free?

There are no totally free games.

[BTPommyB]

Mate. I want to see AH3 be a success.
You wont do it with dodgy marketing!

[guncrasher]

Mate. I want to see AH3 be a success.
You wont do it with dodgy marketing!

you mean like world of tanks, world of warplanes, world of ships, they all advertise as free games.  to play at the high levels you need to buy gold, or moving up is painfully slow.  and even if you buy a lot of gold by the time you get to the top tier, you find there's another line that now you have to grind or pay to play if you want to have a chance.

semp

[Spikes]

Mate. I want to see AH3 be a success.
You wont do it with dodgy marketing!

I'm sure it has something to do with Steam's policy on what constitutes a "free" game versus a "paid" game, but I have no idea.

[Bizman]

What do you mean by saying that AH3 is not free? It's free to download and free to use offline for as long as you want. And there's several free online multi player arenas as well. I'd call that plenty free.

For the first six months a bunch of us learned our basic skills on the free H2H arenas until we were encouraged to bite the bullet and join the masses on the Main Arena. All it took was a leader who kept spamming all his friends to join the practicing event every night. With all this social media of today getting a bunch of like minded people to practice flying and fighting shouldn't be an issue. Making them really take some time to actually concentrate on something is the problem. This is no 3 minutes Candy Crush Saga.

[BTPommyB]

C'mon guys. The steam pitch is rubbish, and misleading.
Be honest. It is a fantasic VR game which is hard to play.
Join a squad and you will learn fast with great people.
Read the reviews. They think we are unapproachable xxxxx's.

[FLS]

The AH3 page on steam is really bad marketing.
It does not represent AH3 accurately.
It also says that the game is free. It isn't and you are annoying prospective players. You come across as  dodgy. Two weeks trial period does not mean free.
I suggest you take a good look at how you present AH3 on steam.

I believe your point is that it's not clear that the populated arenas are subscription arenas and are only free for two weeks. I agree that can create a misleading impression for people expecting MA numbers in the free arenas. Still, there are more free arenas than there are subscriber arenas, so it's hardly misleading to say it's a free game. It's just not popular as a free game.

If you want people to play in the free arenas you need action in the free arenas but nobody wants to be alone there. AI aircraft are one solution.  Showing the arenas as empty isn't encouraging either, maybe showing AI numbers in the new WW1 arena would help with that.

...
Be honest. It is a fantasic VR game which is hard to play.
Join a squad and you will learn fast with great people.
...

Did you post that on Steam?   

[Pluto]

If all the people that complained about it not being free, occupied the free arenas there would be plenty of action 100% free. 

[CptTrips]

What do you mean by saying that AH3 is not free? It's free to download and free to use offline for as long as you want. And there's several free online multi player arenas as well. I'd call that plenty free.

Look.  It's not about arguing that your marketing message is technically accurate under the law.  It's about weighing whether your marketing message is being effective.  Do you want to be right, or successful?  Is this about ego, or is it business?

If it wasn't the single number 1 complaint I saw in the reviews, it was certainly common enough to take specific notice of. 

It's not about being right.  It's about winning. Does that message help more than it hurts, regardless of whether it is technically accurate?  If the potential customer's first formative impression of your product is that they feel they were mislead, whether they are justified or not, you've just made your sales job that much harder.  Don't give yourself additional friction to have to overcome. 

Whatever additional initial draw the "Free to Play" is giving you does not outweigh the negative reaction you are getting when they realize how narrowly defined that is.  Like it or not, the potential customers are not seeing the core game as "Free to Play" in the commonly accepted use of the term.  I would suggest:

4 Free to Play Arenas!
Free 8-player Custom Arenas for you and your friends!
Free trial to the Premium Melee Arena!


or

I believe that a limited subset of lesser performance aircraft that would always be available for free in the Melee (a pattern they will already be used to from other games), would be sufficient for them to feel the "Free to Play" description was truthful.  That would be a pattern the market has already trained them to expect.

   

[Oldman731]

I would suggest:

4 Free to Play Arenas!
Free 8-player Custom Arenas for you and your friends!
Free trial to the Premium Melee Arena!

I think that's a great idea.

- oldman

[Spikes]

Free to play suggests that the entire game is free to play with no money being involved. There are no options that are "locked" behind a paid account or anything like that (besides grind multipliers). This is true for games like War Thunder, Tanks, Warships, Warframe, Fortnite. They are totally free to play and won't ever cost you a dime if you don't want them to. Will your grind be miserable if you don't get premium? Of course, but they aren't forcing it.

Warframe is a totally free game and everything can be obtained via their premium currency, which is very easy to obtain by selling items in the game.

Aces High falls under the same category as World of Warcraft or EVE where you get a starter account and free trial, but after a certain amount of time it runs out and you have to pay for "full access" but still retain limited access to the game.

[Volron]

Free to play suggests that the entire game is free to play with no money being involved. There are no options that are "locked" behind a paid account or anything like that (besides grind multipliers). This is true for games like War Thunder, Tanks, Warships, Warframe, Fortnite. They are totally free to play and won't ever cost you a dime if you don't want them to. Will your grind be miserable if you don't get premium? Of course, but they aren't forcing it.

Warframe is a totally free game and everything can be obtained via their premium currency, which is very easy to obtain by selling items in the game.

Aces High falls under the same category as World of Warcraft or EVE where you get a starter account and free trial, but after a certain amount of time it runs out and you have to pay for "full access" but still retain limited access to the game.

I still remember the time you had to spend real money in order to be competitive in World of Tanks.  They have "gold ammo" which is flat out better than any of the "standard" ammo you could use.  Of course in order to buy the "gold ammo" you needed to use gold, which is what you get with real dollars.  While I've heard that they have done away with that (you can now get this "gold ammo" for in-game credits apparently), I've no interest in going back.  A Tier 1 ship in World of Warships can sink a Tier 10.  A Tier 1 tank in World of Tanks could never harm a Tier 10.

[Spikes]

I still remember the time you had to spend real money in order to be competitive in World of Tanks.  They have "gold ammo" which is flat out better than any of the "standard" ammo you could use.  Of course in order to buy the "gold ammo" you needed to use gold, which is what you get with real dollars.  While I've heard that they have done away with that (you can now get this "gold ammo" for in-game credits apparently), I've no interest in going back.  A Tier 1 ship in World of Warships can sink a Tier 10.  A Tier 1 tank in World of Tanks could never harm a Tier 10.

True, but standard ammo wasn't necessary. It really wasn't until all the new high-armor tanks that the premium ammo was necessary. I'm not saying it's a great approach, but it's definitely a great money-maker.

I remember a long time ago the Ltracktor could technically pen the rear of a Maus.

[Volron]

True, but standard ammo wasn't necessary. It really wasn't until all the new high-armor tanks that the premium ammo was necessary. I'm not saying it's a great approach, but it's definitely a great money-maker.

I remember a long time ago the Ltracktor could technically pen the rear of a Maus.

That would have been before my go in World of Tanks. lol