Well, in 1985 to help save the US economy, Japan was "cornered" into signing the "Plaza Accord" which was an agreement between the U.S. and Japan over currency exchange rates. Japan was a clear loser in this agreement and with the "economic bubble" ending in a serious recession: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord
History tries to repeat itself today, with western oligarchs which depend on the "Petro Dollar Hegemony" trying once again to ‘arm twist’ with China over matters of currency exchange rates.
That won't happen because China is not Japan. Most dollars today are outside the US and a global devaluation of the dollar would not be in Asia/China best interest.
Yes, The US government really is bankrupt and has been kept running these past decades by the "good will" of the peoples of the planet (including Japan and China). That good will is running out..
It's not about money nor about supporting the company or not.
-First of all, this is a fullprice game. Not a F2P with a freemium model.
-It's too much to expect that in an RTS both players have access to equal tools to defeat each other and not because i've the competitive commanders i've an edge over my opponent?
-Charging for recycled things.
-Cost of DLC comparison to base game or factions. I'll could care less if the sum of cosmetics, shortcut bundles or singleplayer experience on an MP based game cost more, but not when, in this case, commanders, cost more than the game itself.
Thing is: how hard it to put everything on a bundle or season pass?
This
Any COH2 veteran capable of critical thinking should know by now ITS NOT ABOUT MONEY but rather the flawed marketing strategy. This go way beyond just some disgruntled COH players and actual goes back 20 years to the former SEGA CEO, Tom Kalinske and how Sega of Japan executives forced him to leave.
SEGA have never recovered after that and now just a shadow of its former self. Tom Kalinske as a innovative visionary was to SEGA as Bill Gates was to Microsoft.
Seriously stop bad-mouthing COH2 fans that criticize the way Relic/SEGA monetize this game. Even the new SEGA CEO Haruki Satomi (son of Hajime Satomi), openly said SEGA/SAMMY Holdings marketing strategy failed and promised fans big change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Sammy_Holdings
Whatever you believe the new SEGA CEO or not, there is no doubt that SEGA/SAMMY Holdings marketing strategy hasn't done much to earn consumer trust. That can't be debatable, its a fact and we got everything to back this up beyond any shadow of a doubt.
At very least read the comments from the SEGA CEO and get your head into the game what this is about before putting words into our mouth.
Personally, I would be happy paying a monthly subscription to play multiplayer but that marketing strategy won't work for COH2.
Now for aspiring eSport games, quality over quantity/new content.
First a bit of context, the company is actually part of Sammy Corporation who bought out Sega a fair few years ago. Sammy has a history of mostly doing pachinko in Japan and while they did a few games over the years, it was never their main line of business.
So the direction of Sega since Sammy took over is not an entirely surprising one, as they’ve almost ignored what made games work and went after what they thought would make money based on their pachinko expertise.
No other president before him ever gave Sega the level of success he did, and none since have ever equaled it. One could even go so far as to say that Sega lasted as long as it did as a hardware manufacturer thanks to Kalinske’s efforts during the 16-bit era.
It sure wasn’t because of Sega of Japan.
To make a long story short, Tom Kalinske came close to secure a partnership with Sony. Sega of Japan said no. If the Japan executives had said yes, then the Playstation would never have existed and SEGA/Sony partnership would have become the primary console manufacturer. This epic marketing failure should speak for itself.
http://www.esportsearnings.com/
There is not one top10 eSport game that use full priced game + DLC whoring with questionable quality. It's either the freemium model/microtransactions, subscriptions or full priced games such as Starcraft with quality DLC expansions. To suggest that the current COH2 marketing strategy is going to work for eSport are just absurd.
Esport is an investment, not a golden goose by itself. If new eSport games such as COH2 can't draw in millions of new players then it's a bad investment. There is not a snowball chance in hell, Relic/SEGA can draw in millions of new COH players with the current marketing strategy. Relic's sister studio, Creative Assembly figured this out years ago and now use the WoT FTP model for their eSport game TW: Arena.
Several big eSport games came from humble beginnings without a big marketing budget but they knew how to use "word-of-mouth" marketing that are very cost-effective if done right. It's unlikely SEGA/Relic have a big marketing budget for COH2 so if they are not able and willing to use word-of-mouth" marketing then COH2 eSport are RIP.
Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family, often referred to as earned advertising, are still the most influential, as 84 percent of global respondents across 58 countries
Consumer trust and positive brand advocates are everything in "word-of-mouth" marketing. Games such as League of legends encourages you to play with your friends and this results in many players joining through word-of-mouth marketing.
A good FTP model, turn the consumer into the "salesman". League of Legends was one of the first games to show that word-of-mouth marketing + micro transactions can be the primary source of income for a game without sacrificing game quality.
With all the DLC currently in COH2, it's a logical next step to give a taste for free. No one that understand the eSport FTP model is saying that Relic/SEGA should give everything away for free. But there is no reason why one eastern front faction such as Ostheer can't be FTP + 2 week free trial for all Ostheer premium commanders. Then part of the core gameplay would be easily accessible and COH2 would lose its P2W reputation and draw new players in by word-of-mouth.
If the marketing team behind COH2 don't wake up, then new players are just going to start using https://www.g2a.com (resellers) or worse they will try to pirate the game. Also, trolling new players with RNG war spoils only does more harm than good to COH2s online reputation.
For those who gonna watch the ESL event. Don't forget CA_Dogbert Community Coordinator for Total War: Arena is a former COH1 fan and pro player/manager for Team Dignitas.
As a long time MMORTS fan since 2003, I can say without a doubt that CA has created a new generation of MMO "arena" for PC which looks very promising for future IPs. Currently, there are at least 3 generations of MMO Arena's with eSport potential:
2) The Wargaming game developer and publisher of games such as "World of Tanks"
The second generation which focus primary on PvP, still evolving.
Since 2012, World of Tanks has been in the top10 of eSport earnings: http://www.esportsearnings.com/history/2012/games
3) Total War: Arena (adopting the World of Tanks model)
The third generation which adds more RTS elements to the Arena. Controlling only three units.
IMO, two of the best forerunners for this; "World in Conflict" and some aspect of EvE Online (sandbox MMO-RPG/RTS). Ex-Westwood Studios devs (petroglyph, who made Grey Goo) also recently tried to get into this genre with "Victory Command" (cancelled) and Battle Battalions.
Several CA/Relic IPs would be great using the TW: Arena model:
A) COH: Modern Warfare
B) Halo Wars, ground or space (CA working on Microsoft's Halo IP)
C) Warhammer, ground or space.
Combine these 3 IPs and CA/Relic got the best of all worlds. COH/Total War combat realism, futuristic combat with Halo, lores of magic with Warhammer.
FYI; Battlefleet Gothic (Warhammer space RTS) looks awesome in UE4:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWteWul9cBE
490.305 views after only 2 months, not too shabby. Not even the Homeworld remastered series come close to this Warhammer space hype.
I sincerely hope Relic/CA are taking MMORTS Arena's seriously as that playstyle has good potential to attract casual players, the fastest growing gaming community. The primary reasons why these MMO eSport arena's got so popular was because they have a big appeal to casual players that just want a quick MMO match without building a big MMO character in WoW or EVE Online etc..Also MMOs are usually easier to monetize with subscription or microtransactions than classic RTS games. Another big MMO advantage is "word-of-mouth" marketing like LoL is so good at. Without a big marketing budget, several big MMOs came from humble beginnings and had a focus on positive "word-of-mouth" marketing.
Personal, during my 10 years in EvE Online I saw the same trend. The MMO only started to grow once the core game became playable for a casual player rather than just hardcore. For years now, CCP has been fighting an uphill battle to make it more casual player friendly. After the Homeworld era died many old Relic RTS fans moved onto EvE Online and during their prime lead popular teams/alliance such as Evolution/Band of Brothers
More ideas like this are a step in the right direction.
But don't ignore the big elephant in the room which is SEGA/Sammy Holdings executives using their "pachinko expertise" from Sammy to make money from SEGA games and totally ignored how to make quality gaming. Unfortunately, Relic/SEGA still underestimate the momentous task it will become to monetize an RTS eSport game.
If the marketing team behind COH2 actual took this serious then they would have fixed the broken war spoils system a long time ago or replaced it with in-game currency.
For Relic sister studio Creative-assembly it took them several years to polish a new business model to support CA eSport by adopting the "World of Tanks" FTP model which they are now using in Total War: Arena (beta).
With a few exceptions all the big eSport games focus their business model on either microtransactions + in-game currency or subscriptions such as World of Warcraft. http://www.esportsearnings.com/history/2015/games
Starcraft 2 is a rare exception that focus on quality DLC expansions, but Blizzard have more or less abandoned that eSport business model to also focus on subscriptions or microtransactions. The Starcraft 2 model would not be good for Relic games nor DoW3 as that require some deep pockets between expansions and top notch marketing. Not to mention COH2 is already over-saturated with multiplayer content which haven't been polished/balanced yet.
Today it's very hard to monetize RTSs unless it's a big MMO RTS like Game of War (on mobile) or an MMO RTS like Total War: Arena that use the World Of Tanks business model. Blizzard figured that out years ago and started to focus on MMOs and MOBAs instead of classic RTS.
Dawn of War 2 as you can see with "Last Stand" (http://dow.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Stand) was originally intended to be an MOBA forerunner in 2009 along with LoL. Unfortunately, that did not work out so well and the lead Relic designer Jonny Ebbert (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-ebbert-a8567b9) soon left after launch to join Blizzard as Senior Designer. Ebbert also played a central role to make Starcraft DOTA mod (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-blizzard-dota-launch-plans-revealed) and Heroes of the Storm. Now that don't mean DoW3 nor COH should become more MOBA like as that market is saturated, but there is still market potential for new MMO like RTS to thrive.
eSport with MMOs/MOBAs are growing big primary because it attracts a lot of "casual players" that are the fastest growing gaming community. Unless Relic/SEGA figure out a way to attract a lot of casual players along with hard-core players (easy to play, hard to master gameplay) to COH2 or future games it's hard to imagine that it can become a big eSport game.
So far there have been too much bad marketing by SEGA that focus on quantity with lots of new content with questionable quality. Even the new CEO of SEGA admit to this as does the former SEGA CEO, Tom Kalinske.
First a bit of context, the company is actually part of Sammy Corporation who bought out Sega a fair few years ago. Sammy has a history of mostly doing pachinko in Japan and while they did a few games over the years, it was never their main line of business.
So the direction of Sega since Sammy took over is not an entirely surprising one, as they’ve almost ignored what made games work and went after what they thought would make money based on their pachinko expertise.
Old interviews with the most successful SEGA CEO of America, Tom Kalinske
SEGA Nerds interviews Tom Kalinske
SEGA without Tom Kalinske would never have become a consumer trusted "brand" during the console wars in the 90s. As have been said by Tom Kalinske, he regular talk with former SEGA employees and they all recognize it's a sinking ship.
When we criticize SEGA, we got everything to back it up beyond any shadow of a doubt. So don't be silly and defend SEGAs horrific market strategy which need to change. In the right hands such as Blizzard marketing team, COH2 could have become the next "Starcraft 3" that every RTS fan wanted to play. COH2 is not a big market success when you consider the huge potential it had.
Feel free to add me for 2vs2s, I don't play 3vs3/4vs4. I'm 37 years old, so would love to see more mature players joining COH2. I play both casual and competitive. As long you have decent manners and willing to learn, I don't care much about your rank.
Yes, there are quite a lot of immature players in COH2 and/or some don't speak English. Try to ignore them or make fun of them and hope they will one day grow up. As example, I know lenny in the past (http://www.twitch.tv/lenny12346/profile/highlights) was a bad manner player but then he grew up and was promoting a player friendly COH community. Personal, I have high hopes that even Paula can become a new "Romeo Jedi" someday. Yes, I believe in you PAUL
Go attack valuable community members just to show you are the cool kid in the sandbox. Brilliant idea cool kid, so you want extra candy for destroying others sand castle?
Remember we are all gamers first and foremost. So focus on that rather on the character.
Pay money to SEGA/Relic so we as fans can enjoy beta testing new commanders or wait at least 1 year to get war spoils. Yeah sounds reasonable, just ask Admiral Ackbar:
Following the realization from Sega Games president Haruki Satomi about how gaming quality is important, he’s apparently very happy that fans have responded positively about Sega rejoining the land of gaming once again.
In a recent follow-up comment Satomi said “Seeing our fans across the world respond to our recent interview with Famitsu, lets us know we’ve made the right first step in acknowledging who we are and where we want to be.”
“Sega is dedicated to bringing you quality gaming experiences and becoming a brand you love and trust again.”
If Satomi and his team are really onboard with tackling Sega’s appalling brand image then they have a suitably massive challenge ahead of them.
Sega has progressively ruined its reputation with gamers over the last ten years or so and did incredibly daft things to many of its core gaming properties as well.
In short, Sega is currently at the bottom of a very deep hole when it comes to consumer trust and that is something that won’t be resolved overnight.
Ask just about any gamer what the single worst problem there is at Sega and their answer will almost always be the same: management. No other game company has had such a tumultuous history when it comes to just who was running the show, and there have been four presidents in the last decade alone. It has been a problem that has plagued the legendary software developer since the mid 1990s, when then-president and CEO Tom Kalinske was forced out by a series of horrible business decisions by Sega of Japan. The events surrounding his departure started a domino effect from which the company never recovered, and eventually led to their exit from the hardware business in 2001.
It may sound odd to say that Sega’s misfortune over the last few years is directly related to their mistreatment of Kalinske, but it becomes quite obvious once you examine the facts. No other president before him ever gave Sega the level of success he did, and none since have ever equaled it. One could even go so far as to say that Sega lasted as long as it did as a hardware manufacturer thanks to Kalinske’s efforts during the 16-bit era.
It sure wasn’t because of Sega of Japan.*SNIP*
At very least some of the new SEGA leadership are more honest about betraying fans and get SEGA on the right track in terms of strategy to earn consumer trust.
If Haruki Satomi is sincere about this new visionary leadership, it could be a big game changer for all SEGA owned gaming studios.
As such open executive statement provide “cover” for Relic/CA developers to put more passion into making quality games rather than just taking marching orders from higher ups (such as DLC overlords).
Lionheart openly agreed that SEGAs DLC/marketing strategy is counter-productive:
TLDR: Cut Content Sucks... 6 Months before release... just not cool at all. When its genuine extra content developed just before release in the period where a studio has already finished game production and is getting the ratings and boxing all done that for me is fine. Its additional, adding to the existing 'complete' experience. But 6 months... Chaos was clearly ear-marked early on to be set aside as DLC (hence no information in interviews and events), which I guess they have every right to do but come on, when its seemingly such a key component of a game's lore it just feels crappy.
I understand the whole pre-order culture the industry has now and I dont necessarily have an issue with pre-order bonus' so long as its extra content... For me personally, I just hope they have good performance at launch, otherwise it doesnt matter what content is in or not, if it doesnt run well, whats the point! Please CA, this needs a good launch!!!
Lionheartx10 is a top Total War: Arena ESL player/caster and personal friend with CA_Dogbert.
Dogbert is CA Community Coordinator for Total War: Arena and former eSport player/manager for Team Dignitas for many years. https://twitter.com/ca_dogbert
3 years ago CA_Dogbert/Team Dignitas said this about COH2 eSport;
“Company of Heroes, amazing if it comes back and it got any eSports potential. I’ll literally live on that game.”
Go to youtube at 30:10 to hear CA_Dogbert positive comments on COH2s
So the eSport players/potential partners/casters etc. to support COH2 eSport are out there.
This Warhammer fan (Augur) also explains the latest DLC trick from SEGA fairly well;
This is the actuality of the situation "buy our game now before any reviews come out so you can have the "FULL" game. OR Wait for a game review to see if it's actually worth it, and get a PARTIAL game." The point being, they are putting the consumer in a shitty position. You need to realize this. I should not get less for full price, simply because I bought it a little later than you. The commercial idea here is "our game has sold millions of copies even before release".. the "teenage" customer sees this and automatically assumes it must be a good title, not realizing that the consumers were actually CORNERED into buying it before release. Then when they DO buy it, even if it DOESN'T suck, they have to pay more to get on the same playing ground as everyone else. It's an obvious penny-pinching scam to rush cash in the door and punish anyone who didn't buy it right away.
I have faith in both Creative Assembly & Relic. They are good innovative studios (given they are relatively small size) that deserve more praise from fans. But they need a good publisher with more visions, not a bunch of Gordon Gekko's.
Consumer trust is earned by being consistent in words and actions. Honesty attracts smart passionate players that are willing to invest time/money into the community (by free will), not just some teenagers that want instant gratification.
As I have been trying to point out, we as fans should be more inclined to attribute their marketing failures and missed eSport opportunities up to SEGA executives lack of visions and demanding things with little concept of how things actually work for the RTS genre/fans (latest preorder scandal is clear example of this).
SEGA need to stop using both RTS studios and fans as short-term cash cows and instead start helping the RTS genre/fan community to grow which would lead to higher long-term profits from polished quality games.
The many youtube comments and dislikes (currently 34K) from Warhammer fans to the preorder announcement trailer should speak for itself. I doubt CA have much influence in the matter.
Now if some COH2 members want to continue defending this marketing strategy from SEGA, that's your right ofc but stop trying to shoot the messengers. We as RTS fans all want the same thing, great entertaining games from CA/Relic, so focus on that rather than polishing your ego. But IMO, if this unpolished gem is to go eSport then a lot of things need to change starting with a publisher that are actually willing to support it for the long haul.
You expect them to stop making dlcs?
Get a grip on reality or convince every single player on earth to not buy them.
You're missing the point.
There is a big difference between making sensible DLC and exploiting/deceiving consumers because they got too greedy.
Personally, I'm not against DLC but only if SEGA become more sensible about it. I have invested more than 400$ into COH2 (DLC, second account, community support/donations) so it's not about the money. I invested more than 5000$ into EvE online, supported hundreds of players in my team/alliance and never complained about it until the devs (CCP) went nuts with DLC trickery. Then enough players got angry/protested and then eventual CCP became more sensible about it.
Sadly, it's players with the same consumer attitude like you that SEGA loves to exploit.
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