Adventures in Bizarre Marketing
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Anyone have flashbacks to Spaceballs: The Flamethrower? I know I did.
So Aion now joins WoW in the height of hubris by publishing a magazine dedicated to their game, except that this one is a “digizine” published online.
Question: why should I pay you for an online magazine that you use to talk about your game when pretty much every other MMO studio does so for free on their websites? What is so captivating, so rare, so exquisite that it justifies actual monetary transactions?
Oh. Because you get in-game stuff.
So the Aion magazine is — correct me if I’m wrong — RMT disguised in the form of a magazine, which is justified by withholding printed content from their players as some sort of hostage situation? Bravo, NCSoft. Bravo.
P.S. – Head over to Mutant Reviewers today to read my review of The Guild seasons 1 & 2! Do so now, and I’ll toss in an origami hat and a broken white crayon!
- Posted in: Aion
Uh, Syp you do know that EVE also does so with EON right?
I call dibs on that hat
Wah! True Black and True White dyes as bonus item of the magazine – does this MMO fashion sin never end?
The head is probably meant to mock all subscribers of this thinly veiled double-dipping attempt.
Is this the future – not F2P + itemshop, but box-sale + subscription + itemshop? Meh…
Huh. I saw the headline about this on Massively, but not being an Aion player I didn’t read on. I didn’t realize that their magazine was just an online thing, I assumed it was a real magazine like the WoW one.
Ugh, more marketing that acts like it has to trick people out of their money.
This feels icky.
Someone in a meeting a few months ago asked “Hey, think we can get people to pay to read the website?”
I see a trend. Lame new approaches for game marketing people to justify their jobs.
The funny part is that if they want to do cash shop plus subscription fee, they’ve already gotten a perfectly working model over on City of Whatever. There are packs of additional items for sale with plenty of information about what’s in each, and no one feels as if they’re getting ripped off. (Well, okay, some people do, but that’s in the same category of shock as having to pay for things in a free-to-play game.)
I Buzzed this earlier, and it is a dumb idea
Aion magazine? Is that really needed? “Grind here….ok now move and grind here….avoid this bot….ok yeah! you made it to level 2! Now grind here”
Not sure why everyone is up in arms when a game company tries to, you know, make money. They’re not holding a gun to anyones head, and the price is really not that bad for the content. I subscribed to this for a year, and sure it’s 100% because of the “free” goodies they toss along with it. But 60 digital pages a month of information / community news / updates / interviews and what not all in one location from the source? Sure, why not.
They’re just a company, trying to make money. What’s more they’ve taken a slightly different approach (ie: digital) which is neat to see.
I am excited to see what articles they add, and I really think that supporting a game that provides me with 20+ hours a month of entertainment for $15/m is a good thing.
The only thing I’m “meh” about is that they’re taking pre-orders and offering bonuses for those before readers get to see what the content is actually like (as it doesn’t go live until March 26th). As a friend said “If it’s a fancy PDF with all kinds of art I don’t mind,” but “will have to see the quality of it before judging if it’s something worth paying for.”
- Maybe everyone should do that. Wait, before judging.
I agree with Stargrace. Of course I’m a little biased as I play the game and am still loving it. I haven’t decided on whether to subscribe or not, but it’s within the realm of possibility.
you can keep the hat, ill take the crayon!