twitchtastic

So I went down to ECTS today and was most dissapointed to see that HW2 wasnt there!

I fully expected to be able to see it in action and possibly even give it a whirl and was shocked to find that the relic booth (when I did manage to locate it) was infact smaller than my bedroom, which is tiny, and the sum total of their HW2 advertising consisted of a crap-tacular banner of the HW2 logo drawn in crayon on a napkin... and that was it!

Seriously it wasnt quite that bad but why on earth wasnt there a bit more? With the game only weeks away from release I expected to be amazed and awestruck but instead I left ECTS with nothing more than a profound sense of dissapointment and this wierd rash (not 100% sure where the rash came from, but avoid the Nokia N-Gage display just to be safe.)

WarHampster911

All they had was a banner? Be serious.

Retroboy

Just a clarification that Sierra is responsible for promotion of the game.

For comparative purposes, how big was the half-life 2 display?

-- Retro

HIGHWINDER

Like i said THE HOMEWORLD SERIES IS NOT POPULIAR DO NOT EXPECT THERE TO BE MUCH PUBLICITY ABOUT IT, which i am verry thankfull for.

PS: did u even bother to see if there gonna have the game, and if they are did u reserve it?

twitchtastic

Thats just it, there was no Homeworld 2 display!

There was a single solitary banner about a meter across with the Homeworld 2 title and logo, and that was it.

Dyntheos

HW2 wasn't in the Sierra Area at E3 either..

Ressev

What the heck is ECTS?

About HW2: if it does well, Sierra/Vivendi will want to hold onto it until they die of financial distress. If it does well, they may sell the franchise and someone else may pick it up. However, that might also hurt the chances of the game being bought unless the company had forsight.

Small displays
Little publicity
Cheesy box-art (sure, it has a head on it... but com'on, something prettier would be better)

Hey, what more do you want from an add campaign to sell a great game?

Arconin

when Sierra basically comes out and says that they are not going to put the kind of marketing power behind a game (in this case HW2) because it wont sell well.....it seems to me with just a little bit of reason...that it is inherently a self fulfilling prophecy.

Im sure that if Sierra put a fraction of the marketing power into hyping HW2 like they did other games like HL2 that it might actually sell a bit better.

It takes money to make money...but I guess after all these years of patheticness they dont have much money to make money with...

Sorry, I just get bitter when thinking about things like what was mentioned above...with Sierra not even putting in a lackluster marketing campaign...

Freakshow

heres the stupid thing about sierra, Half Life 2 will sell itself, it doesn't need marketing, all they have to do is tell SOMEONE the release date and itll be huge. but if they promoted Homeworld 2 like crazy then they'd have ANOTHER big series. why spend $$$ on marketing a game that doesn't need it, and not on a game that deserves the $$, needs the $$$ and is definately worth the $$$

Retroboy

Freakshow, it might seem a bit wierd but marketing and corporate product finance don't work that way.

Companies are willing invest in marketing for products that either a) guarantee a formidable profit through either huge sales or high profit per unit, or b) are essential to the credibility, name brand, or image of that company.

HalfLife 2 is both of these things for Sierra, and the money spent marketing it has pushed it over the edge from "eagerly awaited sequel by those in the know" to "eagerly awaited sequel by just about everyone with a computer". Every incremental dollar spent on marketing that game reaches a fatter and fatter audience. For example, Halflife 2 has been on the local and national news and in Playboy magazine. A lot of people who don't even buy pootergames will wander by the eBoutique or BestBuy in the mall and see the big cardboard box and say "Hey, I've HEARD of this!" - and buy it. That's a heyoooooge number of people and a ton of extra sales.

Homeworld 2 is a bit riskier and it selling many units is still in question. It's essentially targeted toward a niche group of players (and kudos to Relic for working hard to change that). Regardless of its quality, you might not get a return on your dollar if you spend a bundle marketing it but it doesn't cross over into "popular" popularity. Why risk spending $1M marketing a product to try to MAKE it popular, when you can spend that money turning something that WILL be popular into an even more phenomenal success?

Regardless of this, I still think Sierra could have thrown a little more effort at pushing Homeworld 2. The two-page ads in PCGamer and other print ads certainly help, and I'm glad to see them, but I wasn't happy to see a no preorder or "coming soon" boxes at my local electronics boutique.

-- Retro

GuaRRand

Hw2?

GuaRRand

Does sierra even KNOW or CARE that it has Homeworld under its wing?

If i had know this, i would have never bought Larry, Kings Quest, Space Quest, Colonel's bequest and every other Quest...

nope...just kiddin.
I didnt buy them in the first place

Oh..nope..kiddin again..

FallenSoloSLS

<---- Wonders what the impending sale of the Sierra (and a lot of other pieces of Vivendi) has to do with the marketing of HW2.

It seems that Retro is right on, and that this lack of marketing is compounded by the fact that Sierra is literally on the auction block, right along with Universal and other entertainment franchises.

Freakshow

why would vivendi consider selling sierra? they have several large franchises, one massively huge one, and many other good ones. it makes no sense, business people dont know how to run game businesses.