Why doesn't DE advertise Warframe?

[aligatorno]

6 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

 

 Destiny also had the largest advertising campaign of any game in history (its advertising campaign went into the tens of millions of dollars).

#1 game when it comes to advertising is COD Modern Warfare 2 with a whooping 200 million dollars. Destiny's 500 million dollars budget is for the entire trilogy iirc. 

Edited July 22, 2017 by aligatorno

[--F--NerevarCM]

I found Warframe in 2013 from a poor made ad on a random site and at first I tought it was from a browser game. Then I clicked that ad and now is 2017.

[Elvangreen]

27 minutes ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

Btw, you mentioned 30 mio registered users.
Is there another stat too how many users have logged in during (lets say) the last year?
Since WF is couple years old there might as well be lots of "dead" accounts.

54,000 players on the PC steam version right now.

Unknown number on standalone PC version.

Unknown number on Consoles.

[OniDax]

44 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

They do. Sort of. Not on TV or anything, but I've seen some banners on websites show off Warframe. It's gotten quite a bit of publicity in the past too, PAX East panels, Gamescom TennoLive panels, E3 2013 (partnered with Sony to have PS4 versions of the game running for attendees). 

 

Warframe is also already very, very big. Over 30 million registered users.

Sigh. How many of those 30 million registered users are active? "Registered users" means very little. It is no indication of how popular Warframe is, or how big their active player base is, or how successful the game ultimately is. I'm really not sure why developers like to tout the number of registered users, because again, it's no indication of the number of active users, which is the actual important number.

Edited July 22, 2017 by A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n

[aligatorno]

8 minutes ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

Sigh. How many of those 30 million registered users are active? "Registered users" means very little. It is no indication of how popular Warframe is, or how big their active player base is, or how successful the game ultimately is. I'm really not sure why developers like to tout the number of registered users, because again, it's no indication of the number of active users, which is the actual important number.

Not only developers use the registered users as reference. Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Facebook, Google etc , all of them use it.  Zuckerberg said recently that facebook finally reached 2b users, but we all know that a lot of people have multiple accounts so it is not a realistic number of actual users. 

Edited July 22, 2017 by aligatorno

[(PSN)Igna232]

8 minutes ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

Sigh. How many of those 30 million registered users are active? "Registered users" means very little. It is no indication of how popular Warframe is, or how big their active player base is, or how successful the game ultimately is. I'm really not sure why developers like to tout the number of registered users, because again, it's no indication of the number of active users, which is the actual important number.

54K on steam version

unknown standalone

unknown console

I would estimate a total of 100k... that's a lot...

[OniDax]

19 minutes ago, aligatorno said:

Not only developers use the registered users as reference. Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Facebook, Google etc , all of them use it.  Zuckerberg said recently that facebook finally reached 2b users, but we all know that a lot of people have multiple accounts so it is not a realistic number of actual users. 

Yeah. I just wish companies would stop promoting that as an indicator of their success. Many people can try out their product, but might not stick with it. I think the mere fact that DE felt they had to move towards open world to keep the game fresh (despite many people asking for it for years, with DE constantly shutting them down) is indicator enough that having millions of registered users wasn't any sign of overwhelming satisfaction with Warframe; otherwise, they probably would've continued being against the idea of open world and would've stayed their course. DE shifted from a counter-industry stance (being unique from the rest of the industry) to following what the rest of the industry is increasingly moving toward, which is open world. And they only did that in late 2016/early 2017, despite people asking for open world for years. Warframe is successful, but it can't be that successful when it comes to the size of their player base if they're willing to make such a shift.

Oh, and by the way, Facebook's 2B number is monthly active users, not registered users.

Edited July 22, 2017 by A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n

[Elvangreen]

26 minutes ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

Yeah. I just wish companies would stop promoting that as an indicator of their success. Many people can try out their product, but might not stick with it. I think the mere fact that DE felt they had to move towards open world to keep the game fresh (despite many people asking for it for years, with DE constantly shutting them down) is indicator enough that having millions of registered users wasn't any sign of overwhelming satisfaction with Warframe; otherwise, they probably would've continued being against the idea of open world and would've stayed their course. DE shifted from a counter-industry stance (being unique from the rest of the industry) to following what the rest of the industry is increasingly moving toward, which is open world. And they only did that in late 2016/early 2017, despite people asking for open world for years. Warframe is successful, but it can't be that successful when it comes to the size of their player base if they're willing to make such a shift.

Oh, and by the way, Facebook's 2B number is monthly active users, not registered users.

I agree with your general point, but open world requires a lot of work and time, that they likely did not have in the early years of the game. Also steam version has seen a steady increase in active players.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Elvangreen

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

There are a few ads already, but aside from that the game is still very much in-development and I think DE is not going to expose the whole "You can already spend $$$ to buy stuff" But that's just me being cynical. And it's not like ads are the sole reason people pick up the game. Out of all the registered users, how many still actively play or log in?

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

1 hour ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

Yeah. I just wish companies would stop promoting that as an indicator of their success. Many people can try out their product, but might not stick with it. I think the mere fact that DE felt they had to move towards open world to keep the game fresh (despite many people asking for it for years, with DE constantly shutting them down) is indicator enough that having millions of registered users wasn't any sign of overwhelming satisfaction with Warframe; otherwise, they probably would've continued being against the idea of open world and would've stayed their course. DE shifted from a counter-industry stance (being unique from the rest of the industry) to following what the rest of the industry is increasingly moving toward, which is open world. And they only did that in late 2016/early 2017, despite people asking for open world for years. Warframe is successful, but it can't be that successful when it comes to the size of their player base if they're willing to make such a shift.

Glad I'm not the only one who realized that. Sad to say that with that shift, a lot of the care and the heart in the company and even the game is slowly ebbing out. The passion is still there I feel, but the actual driving force to keep going against the industry is slowly fading. Maybe that's exaggerating, maybe not, but it's getting more obvious.

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

2 hours ago, aligatorno said:

Destiny's 500 million dollars budget is for the entire trilogy iirc

IF they can even get a trilogy out of a stale already told story. After the first game and all the DLC it's already reaching the point of diminishing returns, since it's pretty much Halo meets a watered down Borderlands loot system and ever since Bungie sold Halo to 343 the entire thing's become a cash grabbing sham. The only reason things like Call of Duty keep going is because people keep buying it, not because the story is any good or there are actual changes to keep the gameplay fresh. People just feel the need to have the newest thing.

[OniDax]

45 minutes ago, 1tsyB1tsyN1nj4 said:

Glad I'm not the only one who realized that. Sad to say that with that shift, a lot of the care and the heart in the company and even the game is slowly ebbing out. The passion is still there I feel, but the actual driving force to keep going against the industry is slowly fading. Maybe that's exaggerating, maybe not, but it's getting more obvious.

I'm sorry. I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying. I am glad that it's shifted in this direction. I think it should've shifted in this direction 2 years ago. I very much think that open world is the direction they need to go in. I'm just bothered by their reasons for shifting now. And I'm not in any way a fan of their previous efforts to go against the industry just for the sake of going against the industry.

I think that mentality, that focus, has greatly limited Warframe's potential. Warframe has so much more potential now that they are embracing open world, and many in the community realized that years ago. It bothers me that DE not once acknowledged that players in their community asked for open world. DE acted like they came up with that idea on their own, and that the community wasn't expecting it. Players have made direct appeals to DE to implement more open world elements into their game, and DE rejected those ideas repeatedly by complaining of how it wouldn't fit Warframe. I don't know what it was, but something about Warframe wasn't satisfactory and they decided to stop resisting and to embrace open world. I'm glad they did, but I wish they did it years ago, when they didn't feel like they had to. Regardless, I hope they become even more open to adopting certain things from the industry that would actually enhance their game. And hopefully they will no longer try to be different/counter-industry just for the sake of it.

[DxAdder]

Iim Sure DE has considered advertising but it's not cheap.

[OniDax]

59 minutes ago, 1tsyB1tsyN1nj4 said:

 People just feel the need to have the newest thing.

Hmmm, kinda like the Warframe community chasing after the latest Mastery fodder and complaining when DE actually chooses to implement fresh new features that could expand the gameplay and scope...

[Mr.ToastForPresident]

Advertising costs a lot of money. Like, a lot. Games with publishers can blow huge budgets not only to get TV time, but have sponsorship deals, have famous celbrities talk about the game, and have a big banner every time you enter your local Target or Wal-Mart. Since that budget comes from a publisher with people with tons of knowledge about marketing, this doesn't eat into the development budget.

Warframe on the other hand, doesn't have enough money to just dump into marketing. No publisher is going to help them out if they go under, so every penny spent is directly from the company. I guess DE would rather spend those millions expanding their horizons by hiring new developers into making new games rather than to bid it all just to get two days worth of advertisements on Youtube.

[Chipputer]

4 hours ago, Legion-Shields said:

Also consider the fact that the Destiny community gives zero creds about how their game compares with Warframe. All of the so-called "competition" is from the Warframe community.

Interesting that you're one of the first people I've ever seen basically say, "I play Destiny and nobody there cares about Warframe," since it came out. You may not see it. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I rarely see people compare Destiny and Warframe, any more. The only reason it's brought up so much now is because of how recent E3 was.

Warframe's community cares about how it compares to Destiny for the simple fact that it's a AAA budgeted game versus a free2play one. They're very similar concepts. Of course they're going to feel like the longevity of their favorite game is threatened. This isn't about some petty squabble, like your nonchalant attitude seems to make it out to be. It's about business and keeping something you enjoy alive.

[Papragu]

Those ads on sideframes you see on certain web pages are targeted ads because you frequently visit or look at warframe content. Those ads show different things for everybody. DE really doesn't do any active advertisement for the game.

[(PSN)dursereg]

There is an in-store printed endcap ad for warframe and some graphics card at my local fry's electronics.

[Corvid]

I assume you've heard of the tabletop game Warhammer 40K? If you have, try to recall if you've ever seen any adverts for it.

Spoiler

There aren't any.

Word of mouth is a powerful thing.

[Hecro]

When it comes to trailers, there is definitely an opinion similar to "This is not like the game".

 

Whether or not this game is advertised anywhere, we could make great use of Captura stuff and put at the bottom: "Real in-game footage" whenever a crazy parkour movement or weapon stance comes in. That would lure lots and lots of people.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Hecro

[BetaNoire]

8 hours ago, Letter13 said:

They do. Sort of. Not on TV or anything, but I've seen some banners on websites show off Warframe. It's gotten quite a bit of publicity in the past too, PAX East panels, Gamescom TennoLive panels, E3 2013 (partnered with Sony to have PS4 versions of the game running for attendees). 

 

Warframe is also already very, very big. Over 30 million registered users.

I think I started in April because of a Facebook ad.

There aren't any.

Word of mouth is a powerful thing.

I remember ads from magazines.

Edited July 22, 2017 by BetaNoire

[(PSN)robotwars7]

Advertisements cost money, and most people are sceptical of Free-to-play games, even though there are shining examples such as Warframe and Fortnite out there. it's relatively well known as far as F2P games go anyway.

[BetaNoire]

Also keep in mind, games like League of Legends had very little advertising. And tournament play sort of serves that purpose as well.

Edited July 22, 2017 by BetaNoire

[Corvid]

10 hours ago, BetaNoire said:

I remember ads from magazines.

Those were likely for the spinoffs. The tabletop game itself is advertised purely through word of mouth.

[(XBOX)FreakyParsley]

They had an advert and offer of a weapon and boosts in Xbox mag back in February I think it was , caught my eye and gave it ago. 600 hrs , 5 months and £200 later I'd say advertising works .