EVE General Discussion

Dear CCP;

Prior to playing EVE, I had very few advertisements for the game appearing in my social media feeds or as banner ads on various sites I visit. In fact, I'm not sure I recall seeing one from that period.

Since actually starting the game, July 2014, I've become swamped with ads for EVE.

I'm assuming this is because the Google algorithms that determine what ad content I'm interested in has registered that I'm interested in EVE. So, said algorithm now serves up a continuous stream of EVE ads.

Which is all kind of completely ass backwards really. Why throw money at advertising your game to your current subscribers? Surely you'd want to be promoting it to those who haven't played before, or those who have left the game?

Social Media can be a great advertising platform, however it doesn't work well when you're purely relying on algorithms to manage your ad presence. As facebook has discovered with the recent epicfail of their Trending News algorithms, some things just can't be trusted to computers.

Perhaps a slightly more active marketing campaign aimed at complete newbros or at the vast silent pool of players that have long since let their subscriptions lapse? I fully realise that this is not an easy task.

Just a thought I felt I should bring to your attention. The proposed November changes are a really great opportunity for an aggressive and extensive marketing campaign.

One final suggestion: Have a look at the Australian ABC show Gruen. Each episode they challenge two ad agencies to "sell the unsellable" and come up with quirky ads on a given, usually taboo, topic. For example, sell the Australian electorate on invading New Zealand. Check it out, you might get some ideas. If nothing else, contemplate commissioning either Russel Howcroft or Todd Sampson's agencies in designing a campaign for you (or both of 'em).

Just something that occurred to me. Thank you in advance, I hope this southern summer will bring a huge increase in target numbers, sorry, player numbers and keen young newbros into our little sandbox.

that's what makes it a hard sell. what kind of softy wants safe wildlife? i mean, sheesh, if I don't dodge at least three brown snakes on my way to the Khazi and have to bat away a dozen whitetail spiders then where's the sense of achievement?

I used Khazi to make myself more comprehensible to Northerners.

But yes, it's a Long Drop either way.

I get Eve ads on my Facebook feed too (not boosted posts from the Eve-O Facebook page, but honest to god advertisements wanting me to download and try Eve).

We may be immortal, fly around in spaceships and be awesome pvpers who topple over empires, but spiders? Eek!

I don't remember the last time I've actually seen ads.. Having cookies and javascript *cough* blocked by default, no flash, plugin for tracker blocking, plugin for ad blocking, plugin for more blocking, a few browser tweaks to prevent fingerprinting, blocking of entire IP subnets.. I probably have more than 95% of the junk that floats around blocked. Feels good, man.

Use ad blockers.. I'd recommend uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger as must-have plugins.

"Nerdy" online comics might be a good place for adds too. BTW are you the jen aside from the "Dumbing of Age" comic ?

I'm glad to hear that I am not the only one who has noticed what appears to be a lackluster strategy towards marketing Eve to a broader audience. I can tell you this. I was recently asked by some extended family members who were visiting and asked why I was so involved in what they believed was a game for kids ( out of ignorance they equate video games with adolescence ). My reply to them was to show the "This is Eve" YouTube video on the big screen TV. The two male family members were subbed the following day. Their spouses refuse to speak to me anymore. That is solid proof that marketing works.

Max

I noticed the same and simply marked it off to "personalized advertising" being a stupid idea. The same happens when my wife is ordering something on the internet. You can be sure that the selfsame article she just bought ist waved in front of my face for days. It's really stupid as I don't need two identical baseball caps/sunchairs/kitchen tables/whatever. Or rather If we needed two she would've bought two already.

It never occured to me that someone is paying money for this completely useless advertising. So, yes CCP you should think twice before supporting such rubbish.

Ive had "bad dragon" ad's. They make toys.

My advice for CCP if it's available is to target Runescape players, especially with this free to play things coming out, they'd be used to the limited play.