[2020] Community Q&A 58 with host Clive the Marketer

I don't look after the sales but it's something I can raise with the team. Thanks for the feedback!

Nice work!

So would y'all consider doing t-shirts or jackets a la on demand printing for those of us who would love to advertise y'all around the world??

The more we discuss doing more t-shirts and printing, the more I like this idea. Eric is a big fan of t-shirts here too. I think that we should do it and maybe something like BustedTees or RedBubble will give us the chance to explore the idea. I'll look into it.

Fixed! It's a last minute snafu because I was on the subs bench and asked to warm-up quickly as Erika has a meeting :)

I spend a lot of time performing marketing tasks for existing fans (my job is probably 50-50 between new and existing fans).

Things like all the social media posts, writing the weekly emails, designing the images that you see on both, etc.

Existing fans are the reason that we are able to keep Crusaders going so we make sure to look after you :)

Great question. So, I've worked in both environments where last minute announces are a necessity (like CNE) and then campaigns like FIFA where there's a three to six-month pre-promotion period.

It really comes to down to the resources available to hit a communications milestone. At CNE we are 16 people but split over different projects. At EA I was part of a machine that had well over 100-200 people (in total, including all the ancillary staff) working on the game.

I would like more lead time to really blow out the marketing but by the same token the system we have here is manageable for the size of the studio.

Hey Tass. You guys are way too clever for me! We definitely would like to do more. The hardest thing is actually balancing the puzzles so that everyone has a chance to engage and feel like they have a fair crack at solving them.

The amount of work I put into the last one was quite significant and it was solved within minutes!

If time and money were no object I would LOVE to do a really sophisticated campaign like the Lost (TV show) where they had online cryptic clues, or Jay Z's album launch where he hid lyrics at real locations all around NYC.

However, there's also a question of how much does the quiz/puzzle actually start to become it's own beast and distract from the game. Lots of food for thought.

Short answer would be, nothing in the hopper but would love to do a new one time permitting.

Nice! That's good to know there's an appetite for that kind of stuff to sell. I'll raise with the team (I don't control the sales) and see what they think.

1) Totally. Mobile marketing is (a) very reliant on charting via Apple/iTunes support at launch (b) having the available marketing budget to take risks on acquisition spread over 30, 60, 100, and even as long as 300 days. Not a lot of companies have those kind of resources.

After much discussion and analysis here, it really comes down to making a visually appealing game that is on-trend to get the attention of the editorial team who manage the iTunes store. That'll enable you to get a feature.

Compounded with that is that you have to have confidence that your game is going to retain and monetize well to take risks on early acquisition to keep you in the charts and recoup your marketing expenses back anywhere up to a year or more later.

2) The biggest open door is probably finding new and creative ways to work with platforms like Humble Bundle, OrlyGift, and other giveaway websites. They've been really important for us. That's more for PC/Steam though.

:)

We hear you! So, "soon" should be something we can confidently deliver within two to three weeks.

However, if I understand the context of the question, we can probably do more to identify words that help us communicate realistic timelines :)

Thanks for the feedback. I'll share that with Justin and the team. We do annualise the events so it's reasonable to assume certain things we do but as for the data mining maybe it's something we can better mitigate against. The clever people on the team will be able to help answer that.

That'd be the holy grail of making it a personal experience based on individual ability.

I saw a really great puzzle for Battlefield once. The final step still required individual player input https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuuzmOXL1bc

However, I'll give that idea some more thought and see if there's a way to do it that doesn't pull people from doing the important stuff in keeping Crusaders running.

Since starting, I've had to learn a tonne of new skills including Photoshop and HTML. It's been great to continually add new strings to my bow. I REALLY like working with technology that outputs something I can share with people.

Previous roles I've had, I wouldn't have had to actually write the newsletter or create the banners. It's been really good for the old brain.

Another part of the job is metrics. My background is Arts at university but working in video games ever since the launch of FIFA Ultimate Team and FIFA Online it has required marketing that has a huge analytics component. I've had to get very comfortable with a number of analytics platforms and spreadsheets.

I love poring through data trying to understand how any campaigns I put together are working.

Nothing to report at the moment but we'll update you as soon as we can!

Yes! More lore would be awesome. I think that's something we'd all love to do as some of those characters have been around for five years now. Bringing them across was kind of like having spin-off movies for The Avengers. Sort of.

At the moment, we don't have anyone to spend time on fleshing out the back stories but would love to get to that.

Nothing in the hopper to announce at this time! ;) We like your thinking.

There is a limit on the lowest RAM the game can support. If it's under a certain threshold, the game (like other games too!) will struggle to cope...

No, nothing to announce on that front right now :)