I stumbled over a poignant comment on the Guild Wars 2 forums the other day, in a thread lamenting the lack of good spear skin in the game. While spears have always existed, they’ve never been a big commodity as they were meant for underwater playing only. Now, though, thanks to Janthir Wilds, every class in the game can use a spear on land, and the spears for Fashion Wars are… lacking.
Right?? Why in the world was there not an entire collection of spears ready to go on day one? There’s one in the Wizard’s Vault, yes, and several weeks after launch ArenaNet added one to the cash shop, and yes, some of the new lockbox collections have spears now. I know how to find the few that are out there. My point is it’s still not a lot, and it’s just so weird to me that the devs aren’t trying to sell us skins by the truckload. It’s a missed marketing opportunity, as the poster says – just as it was last year when ArenaNet didn’t flood the shop with skyscale skins after giving everyone skyscales!
It’s not the first time that ArenaNet seems to be missing these obvious revenue hooks. And other studios do this too! With the exception of SWTOR and the Cryptic MMOs, I sometimes wonder if the marketing and revenue folks know what the dev team is even doing. I am constantly sitting in that game thinking please, take my money. Why are you not selling me things I want!?
What are some missed marketing opportunities you’ve seen out of MMOs?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
