HiTech has a massive list of emails of everyone who has ever played Aces High, or at least they should have...
If it were me, I would send mass emails out to everyone who ever played and is not a current subscriber... Offer a free month, or whatever... Include testimonials from actual players, choose some of the long term recognizable names... Talk about VR and how cool it is to feel like you are sitting in the cockpit.
Such a campaign would cost almost nothing, and I would wager that it would draw a fair number of people back into the game.
A news letter would be a fantastic idea. If Hitech was interested in a monthly email I’d be happy to generate something for him to send out.
Perhaps stick with it all being current AH3 for each arena and just tweak each arena for requirements to white flag a town. EW 100% to WF, mid war 90%, LW as it is now. There is no doubt that people would run maps like before but if you’re outnumbered it is defendable off the attacker needs to kill more buildings to white flag. I like your idea on a newsletter campaign. I like it a lot!!!
I don’t know anything about press release graphics but I can come up with the language. I don’t think it would be cost prohibitive at all.
And the VR experience is incredible. A total game changer. When I first started playing, I had a $300 Walmart special computer and stick. By todays gaming standards (for any game) you have to have a beefed up system to handle the graphics and game play.
I started flying in DCS last year and am part of a virtual carrier group in a Marine Squadron flying the AV8B Harrier. It amazes me how many people are there. It tells me that if someone is passionate about combat flight sims, they will spend the money.
I’ve invested over $4000 into my new system last year to handle my nasty gaming habit. In DCS alone, I’ve spent about $400 in planes, maps, and campaigns. And it is worth every penny. Honestly, at $15 to $20 a month for AH3, to basically fly anything you want, more people would fly if they knew about it. Many people I know in DCS never heard of AH3 so I’ve been spreading the word.
Again, I’ve flown multiplayer in DCS. Many of the servers don’t have more than 3 to 4 people at a time in them. Setting up EW and MW would have curb appeal to that player base IMHO. And I think we would get a lot of older players to come back.
HiTech, if you’re reading this and you’re interested in some sort of news letter, PM me and I’ll volunteer to help with it. You’ve been really good to me over the years and I’d like to help if I can. Do you have an email list of past and present players that you could send out if we were to create a news letter? Of course you would have to be the one to send it out. The list of clients is yours and yours alone. Your business so you get final editorial decisions to send a blast.
Let me know and I’ll jump on it this week.