Yesterday I had what is in retrospect quite an amusing conversation with P. I was saying that it felt strange for an entire summer (and part of the fall, if Cataclysm isn’t going to be out until November) to stretch out with absolutely no new MMOs to play. I said that if I had a game even somewhat close to release, I would release it now and take advantage of a summer with virtually no competition for gamers hungry for new lands to explore.
And this morning, as I have my coffee and go through the news, I see this on Massively: Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer has been Dated. I start to read the article with little excitement, expecting a 2011 release, and I see that the release date is a couple of weeks away, May 11th in fact.
This was a shock. Not that I’ve been following AoC news especially, but I am a fan on Facebook, I do read a lot of the MMO blogs, and I’ve seen nothing. I looked on the main site – nothing. (Admittedly, this was the EU site, and GOA will always carry the brunt of my undying hatred for being incompetent jerks – maybe the US one was updated). Nothing on Facebook. Nothing that I could find on Twitter.
It is amazing that a company like this could so badly screw up 1) a launch of an expansion, and 2) social media and branding. Seriously…social media has been around for a long time, it’s not a new thing at this point. Why am I seeing no mention of this in official social media channels?
Part of my job involves building social media marketing strategies for our clients, as well as handling branding and content in the various channels that they are using. It’s interesting and challenging to handle well, but the basic stuff isn’t brain surgery. How can you just not bother to do it at all?
And why is this important? Because of customers like me. Although I thought the original game had some serious flaws and gaps, which were why I eventually let my subscription lapse, I’d been really excited about the previews and screenshots of the expansion that I’d seen on various MMO blogs. I added myself as a fan on Facebook specifically for news and updates. I WANT to buy the expansion…why wouldn’t you try to whip me into a fever of excitement much sooner than this? (Ok, “fever of excitement” may be a bit over-dramatic considering that AoC was actually a bit meh. But you know what I mean.)
Bad Funcom, very bad. Go sit in the corner and think about what you have done.
I kinda miss Conan. Only managed to play it for about a week before my PC couldn’t take it anymore. I loved my Tempest of Set <3
I miss Conan too, even though I was playing a Dark Templar which doesn’t really suit me.I think if I’d been playing a ToS or similar I’d have goten a lot more from the game.
I agree with you though – the first I knew about this expansion was the email I got. And even now I’m not inclined to go back. Too much time has passed.
Also, the fiancee demands camel mounts. No camel, no subscription.
Camel mounts would be awesome. But I admit I’m totally in love with the idea of training a mount from cubhood – what an awesome idea!
I went ahead and resubbed, just to try to remember what I was doing on my ToS. Completely lost. So yesterday I started a Dark Templar, and she’s now level 12. And seeing Tortage one more time wasn’t as impossibly painful as I thought it would be. :)