EVE General Discussion

In the real world, I am an independent business development consultant. I help develop mortgage banks, train loan officers and I also help companies with SEO and branding.

As a newly addicted EVE player, I see a lot of threads about bringing in new players so, for any CCP exec that reads these forums, let me explain the user experience to someone who see EVE marketing online.

Someone sees an ad for EVE on Facebook or elsewhere, they get curious, maybe click the website link and are impressed. Then, they do a Google search for EVE online and find an endless stream of dated/old articles and how-to content making Eve look historical instead of new, lively and engaging. User sees all of this old and quite potentially outdated content as well as broken links to major information sites and thinks "why bother diving into a graveyard of a game".

Now, I LOVE EVE. Truly an amazing sandbox with so much to offer and the development teams commitment to continuously developing new content, ships, etc is frankly inspiring. So much so that I've spent a great deal of money to "catch up" in skills (real experience slowly forthcoming).

CCP should seriously consider hiring an SEO/Content firm capable of creating new guides, How-To's and cleaning up and or outranking all of the outdated content found everywhere. Perhaps hold some Contests on the best Guides/Articles written by the extremely experienced player base from anything from Exploration to How Eve has changed over the years. Contests for Corp ran fan sites and other such content. Then, help these corps/content writers to rank this new content over whats been sitting out there for a decade.

As I see it, EVE is a beautifully constant changing treasure hidden deep in an attic of artifacts and dust that should be a focus for CCP to revitalize.

Just my two ISK worth but I see this as something very much worth exploring with 100 probes.

Is this why CCP killed the official wiki?

Yes, it's better whne Google returns dead links to the official wiki than when it returned (potentially) outdated articles.

There is something funny in a company which considers that their customers are better at their job than themselves.

"No we don't provide documentation with the game... ask our customers to learn about it, they do a better job"

And even when they go and hire someone briliant to alleviate their issues, they just get it briliantly wrong. Can't wait to see CCP Ghost's NPE children start the game with a emotional bond towards NPCs and then find out that NPCs in EVE are irrelevant and all what they've done during NPE wasn't worth a squat...

Just have a picture up with "Porn hub station" in the advertisement.

You'll get load of new "came expecting porn. Left with a sore ass and popcorn" (sitting playing EvE not the other )

You're not getting the point of the phrase.

At one point, yes, to the masses, the Earth was flat because it was perceived as such. To outsiders, EVE would be an old, dead game because its easy to perceive it to be based on the date of many of the articles and guides about EVE found on Google. Of course we know its not, but it is to those who perceive it to be and therefore, unless they dig deeper or try the game, that perception will forever remain their reality.

I can agree with this. EVE can be doing so much more in the way of cheap, effective and even fan/player-based advertising.

The key is to not make this be an old game thing. EVE is constantly renewing itself (to the chagrin of the bittervets). It ads content, updates the story continually, provides new opportunities for new styles of play. Every year, EVE becomes a new game. Take a look at how other MMOs are designed and you can see why they're all very similar in game play (Go to X, get missions, run missions, get loot, level up, go to Y, rinse and repeat). This is why they get a lot of players at first but then the numbers dwindle away as the players get attracted to the next game. EVE has lasted as long as it has because it continually changes.

Word of mouth works a little when it comes to promoting a game like EVE. Articles on gamer websites about World War Bee or real dollar-value loss after a big fight can generate some interest. But that's marketing to the gamer community. EVE has other places and people they can market to.

EVE is a SciFi game. But I see little to no marketing aimed at the SciFi community. If EVE were to start making more and stronger ties with established and up and coming SciFi writers and artists, EVE wouldn't just develop a better subscription base, it would develop a better fan base.

How many sales did the EVE novels generate? What was the target demographic and how many books were sold to players as opposed to how many books were sold to people who had never played before? Now, what if you create a "writers bible" and toss a few bucks to Kim Stanley Robinson or Jim Butcher or D.C. Fontana or Greg Bear and make an anthology of short stories set in the EVE universe? Who would buy those books?

Why not EVE at a SciFi convention as opposed to a gamer convention? Two people, a table, a laptop and some swag could generate a lot of interest at even a small, local Con. A bigger presence at the bigger conventions would draw in even more. This is building a fan base 101. And it works amazingly well.

Increase the amount of podcasts and content that tell the story of EVE, not just the game mechanics of EVE and you'll have fans in droves. Never underestimate the financial power of nerds (like me) when it comes to supporting a good story (take a look at Firefly or Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead if you don't believe me). More fans, means more players. More fans and players increases the game content which leads to more new fans and players.

Without the story, we'd all be playing Asteroids.

I'm sorry but that title is tacky

I guess you'd know about outsiders to internet gaming, being one yourself. I feel somewhat neglected with no response to my other post. Allow me to approach this from another angle...I know....

You think you've stumbled onto something. Your old poetry forum has posts that date back to 1997 giving it that ghost town feel and you thought you could overlay that on EVE because you came across some internet content that isn't '16 vintage. Then, you thought you'd come here and pedal your new insight as though it were part of your skills as a...what was it you do? Oh yes, consultant.

However, you're attempting this in the venue of the most feared game on the internet. And, you fail to realize, EVE isn't the most feared game on the internet because nobody's heard of EVE. So, EVE's internet presence and image isn't really in need of anyone (such as yourself) coming to its rescue! As shortsighted as you seem to be, you don't appear to be that particular fire department anyway.

So, maybe rather than trying to stealthily pedal your business with CCP here, you should go back to those investment banks you claim to consult for, and tidy up their images. As they are seen as someone whose head an ant has to lift its leg to pee on, you don't seem to have finished that job quite yet. Your judgement is again in question seeing you
sniff around for other work.

Thank you VERY much. And, have a nice day!

PS Oh yes, one last thing. New to a game players always check the forums for activity to judge how "dusty" the game is. As you might be able to see here, General Discussion is still alive and well.

OP, have you watched the keynote from Fanfest?