A Few Suggestions to DDO PMs & Marketing Peeps

[balancetraveller]

• As far as I can tell DDO's CCU should have already peaked somewhere around 2010 - not long after it went F2P - and is now in a slow decline; ARPU should have peaked somewhere around Q4 2010 ~ Q1 2011, and I suspect the forecast is starting to go downward which could explain why we began to see more and more desperate attempts trying to squish more $$ from the players (fatter and fatter VIP packages) or trying to extend the life span of existing contents (crazy raid difficulty bumps, anyone?), etc.
• I believe you all understood that trying to squeeze more $$ out of the existing user base only brings short-term stimulus to your numbers oftentimes, and usually causes irrevocable damages in terms of trust and loyalty inside your precious community, but you did these things nonetheless since you were convinced that there was no better way to improve the numbers within a "reasonable timeframe". I've been in the F2P gaming industry as well for once and saw way too many games died like that when there was literally nothing left to suck up with. I'd urge you to rethink your strategy regarding this part because this used to be an excellent game and I'd rather like to see it not going down its path (again) this quick.
• What you really need to keep this game living longer in a profitable manner is that you need to expand your user base further - the French/German servers were a good start but not enough due to the populations. As far as I understand, you'll wanna take a look on these following regions: China, Indonesia, Brazil. Also, a high portion of Asian players tend to be powerplayers and don't really care that much about the stories, etc., so that may cut you some translation costs.
• Improve your social marketing department, it's really doing poor per modern day standards. Make some nice and fun Facebook little games that you can play daily or even hourly to collect some... collectables (Yea! Now we can even grind on Facebook! lol), that you can turn in for some nice little gifts on a special landing page on your website (not inside your game, so potential new players don't need to download your huge client to be able to get something which they have absolutely no idea on what the hell it does).
• These are long term solutions, but would work out handsomely for you if executed right. Your current solutions, including trying to make epic raids even longer and epic grinds even lengthier, would sound about right inside a meeting room but in fact has alienated yourself from the majority of the players. You probably think that your top 10% players are contributing like 80% of your revenue so the opinions of the rest 90% of people is not that important. Bear in mind that these people are not two distinct groups but interlinked (friends, families, guildies, etc.), and if you lose 40% from the 90%, you might just lose 40% from the top 10% as well, and there goes 40% of your current revenue.

Sincere suggestions from a former game PM (not in the US) that really used to like DDO.

[GoMeansGreen]

no facebook, period, no daily twitter posts... oh wait, do they still do that? maybe i should check 1tp item?

MORE CONTENT... and get rid of kobolds

that is all


OH, and no silly wow-like interface changes

thanks

[edit: the new heyton's rest quest is really very nice... except for no breakable bonus, but who wants that anyway?]

[mystafyi]

nice post. the one thing you forget is that ddo has exceeded its shelf life. if turbine wont upgrade their server farm to combat lag, you really think they will do anything but squeeze the last few dollars from playerbase before shutting off the lights?

[HarveyMilk]

[*] Improve your social marketing department, it's really doing poor per modern day standards. Make some nice and fun Facebook little games that you can play daily or even hourly to collect some... collectables (Yea! Now we can even grind on Facebook! lol), that you can turn in for some nice little gifts on a special landing page on your website (not inside your game, so potential new players don't need to download your huge client to be able to get something which they have absolutely no idea on what the hell it does).

I suggested tying little games to crafting in another thread. A def good idea, imho