Meh, that's 2 completely different situations and set up.
Thanks CptObvious.
One is 3-sided, one is 2-sided. One is curated, one is not. I've talked to several people in the Scenarios that said they never bother playing the Melee. If they go in there at all, it is just to quickly check their convergence for the plane they are going to be flying in the Scenario.
Now, try marketing the FSO and special events outside of the game and other places than the forums, then you might have a chance. There is virtually no marketing for these events and I'm sure very few new players see them in the forums.
Agreed. I'm wondering if events are really the better stealth product. It's pretty much marketed now as subscribe to our Melee, oh and there are some Scenarios on the side occasionally as well.
Maybe flip the script and focus and really super charge and expand the Scenario capabilities and market AH as:
"Sign up for duty and participate in monthly historical re-enactments of the WWII air war! Relive History. Change History! Oh, and we have a silly 3-chess piece Melee arena where you can go practice in between the main events."
I've also said before (and was attacked), I think there should be event tickets. I'd like to try to draw in IL2 and DCS and WB and WWIIOL pilots in to participate in a event. Yes, they can open a subscription and then close it again, but most people won't do that. They don't know Hitech. The will assume that they will get screwed and charged an extra month, even though HTC makes it very easy to cancel. Asking someone to open an ongoing subscription is just psychologically a big ask.
I've actually seen the #s tick up a bit this winter. Still, I feel like there isn't a big enough team in AH for new maps and planes and additions to the game to come out on a timely basis.
But don't the numbers always trend up in winter when people are house-bound and then decline again once it warms up? It's just that year after year, it never trends up quite as high as the last year, and drops back down a little lower than the year before.
No news or special events updates on the front page along with the same video from 3 years ago doesn't make the game seem like it's being promoted very well. The front page looks very stale.
Where is the hype?
It was suggested that a Social Media Team be formed to produce regular content to hosted by HTC's official channels and web page (with Hitech's review of course). There are lots of talented people in this community and I think I've seen some people volunteer to help with that. It would be more powerful for new content to pushed through HTC's media and web channels so the company doesn't look like a mothballed dead museum. I understand HTC has extremely limit bandwidth and resources . I'm suggesting HTC should to help us, help them.
I don't know if anything like that is underway and just stealth.