Let's have a a quick chat Gearbox

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

Let’s cut to brass tacks Gearbox. Battleborn doesn’t seem to getting a good rep. Partially it’s a problem with the lack of focus of the marketing team over at 2K and another part is that it is being, unfairly in my opinion, overshadowed by the Overwatch hypepocalypse and the rabid fanbase surrounding it shouting at the competition and everyone with a dissenting opinion.

So here are my quick suggestions on what you can do to ameliorate the situation at hand.

1)The guys at marketing need a slap in the face and then to up their game
They had one job and that was to deliver to the consumer a focused vision of what this game actually is. That didn’t turn out so well. That ship has come and gone so let’s go to what you can do if you manage to get another marketing push in the year ahead.
An indication that the guys at marketing were asleep at the help is with the VERY late announcement of that tag line "You were born for this"
A good tagline that sadly wasn’t used until the very late stages of release. So what you can now do with that is keep up the vein of your commercials but instead, try to find celebrities that can help promote it in the vein of Blizzards old wow commercials which are admittedly excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT8maUTzE48
Get Jensen Ackles, Grant Gustin or even Eminem if you want to shoot for the stars. Just try to get some star power to help promote this game. Use that tagline to your advantage. That EVERYONE can be become a badass. That everyone wants to get in on this.

2)Your art team needs to help create an incentive for fan creations.
We’re talking silly comics, pinups, crossovers, absolutely anything that can get the more artistically minded to care enough to create their own stuff and subsequently cause others to join in on the fun.

3)Battleplans need to be even more open than what they are.
The idea is good and and it keeps the the community in the know but more information and ETA on certain future developments would be ideal

4)You need to lower the price tag and STICK to it
This is probably the most important move you can make. It is not enough to simply lower the price point and let it speak for itself. You need to COMMIT to that price. Go balls out in announcing it to the world. Do not make it seem like an act of utter desperation and cowardness. Be brave and get the message out that potential buyers are getting an extraordinarily good value out of the game they are purchasing. Put it on billboards, gamestop windows shops.
Give the people who played the game first some extra goodies that will be available just for them in order to make them feel special. Call it the Battleborn for Glory initiative and charge 20 bucks for the game if you want to go utterly nuts about it. Just make sure the world knows that the lowered price tag simply means a better bargain for new players and not admitting defeat

Well. Those are my two cents. Hope @Jythri and @DuvalMagic takes notice of this thread.

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#2

I have to agree. The marketing has been too much along the lines of “Hey kids! Let’s put on a show!” Time to pull up the big boy pants and get serious.

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#3

Sadly no amount of marketing can fix things when you have begun displeasing your base clientel.
Perhaps they should focus on making the game better and let word of mouth do it’s job.

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#4

Sure it can. Just ask modern Marvel.

#5

1)The guys at marketing need a slap in the face and then to up their game

By opening with a statement like that, you not only are likely to get the thread closed, but the rest of the feedback you offer, even if it’s great feedback, is less likely to be considered. If you want the PTB to listen to what you have to say, I suggest not saying it in that manner.

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#6

While the tone is a bit more cynical and pessimistic than I’d go with, I will say this:

Know what never fails to sell? A great product. It may take time to spread, but a singularly excellent product can’t be denied.

We’re still in the “awkward growing pains” phase with this game, though. GBX has plans, and we need to trust them a bit on it, I feel like.

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#7

That sounds like 2k’s deal, not Gearbox. The publisher is the one who makes decisions like that, so if you have a problem that is outside of content or patches, you’ll want to talk to 2k, not GBX.

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#8

Buddy and I have a long running joke that 2k blew waaaaaaaaay to much money on marketing the disaster that is Evolve and they skipped out on marketing BB because they had no marketing money left. lol

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#9

this game is taking the same path as destiny but cost wise a lesser extent.

#10

No amount of marketing can save a game which just isn’t that good. According to their own statements they had two million playing in the open beta and the overwhelming response from those players was “Meh!”. Word of mouth IS doing its job…driving people away from this game.

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#11

Absolutely NO marketing in my country, most of my friends did even know Battleborn exist, and they all had preordered Overwatch as soon as it was possible. So yes, I think there is a big, enormous, gigantic marketing problem since they all are gamers, they all play many games including indies, and no one ever heard of Battleborn before I talked about it.

#12

I think I agree with some of the sentiment, if not the tone.

There are two core problems as I see them. These problems have existed since CTT:

People have a very hard time knowing what this game is - as a result, they’re scared they won’t like it, so they don’t buy it. Gamers are deeply conservative in their preferences, for the most part. If something doesn’t look like the thing they liked before, they are unlikely to take the risk.

The game is confusing for newcomers - if you went to the store and bought the game tomorrow, without coming to the forum or spending a bunch of time learning about how MOBAs work, you would have a hard time having any idea how to play. Worse, you would lose a lot and not understand why you’re losing. People don’t like this, and their response won’t be to blame themselves, they’ll just say the game sucks.

In my opinion, the best thing that their marketing can do is take these two ideas and search for creative ways to solve them:

Whether that is:

  1. Free demo versions to try things out.
  2. Courting streamers / sponsoring tournaments.
  3. Doing more community outreach, aggressively reaching out to the famous Internet folks and granting them access into the development process.
  4. Stronger messaging around the core mechanics of the game (in the media).
  5. Stronger PVP tutorials/onboarding process for new players.

Something needs to be done to correct the perception that the game is the “poor man’s Overwatch” or that it doesn’t make any sense. One of the most time-tested ways to do that, is to hold some hands and give a large number of people an easy way to pick up and play/watch the game, before throwing them into the game proper.

Two cents.

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#13

Honestly… My recommendations for this game died when they introduced MTs in an AAA title that you can’t even get in game somehow… Plus they didn’t even convert the dollar to euro prices. So one reason less to ever buy them since I don’t feel like paying 4€/4,50$ for a recolor.
I can’t express enough how much I feel let down after owning the game for just a little more than a week. I love the game and I tried so hard to convince people it’s a great game, but I begin to hate everything they do to it and I hope I will feel like I made the right decision buying this game again. But at the moment I can’t enjoy jack ■■■■ about it because I put my trust into them and all they do is f*ck up.
I’ll still play and enjoy it, as far as I can, but I sure as hell won’t recommend it anymore because I don’t want anybody else to feel slapped in the face for supporting this game.

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#14

As opposed to…what? All the other abusive MT’s that forcibly add needless grinding to get, just to make the pay option look better? I don’t sugarcoat things, especially when it comes to microtransactions. But at least you are paying for something that CAN’T be earned by someone farming endlessly or botting the game to make it happen. That’s what helped kill off most MMO’s save that ONE.

It’s a vanity tag. And frankly, I don’t care about vanity tags, and I don’t understand why other people do. Exactly who are you standing out from? You bought a unique skin…that everyone else can buy and wear. In PvE, you could end up with five carbon copy clones of a character, INCLUDING those skins…

I’m starting to think people are given too many choices with stuff like this. You can’t even SEE what you’re angry over, except in the character select screen, and the Appearance tab of the character profile screen. What you’re buying, or complaining about, is something that will come up for YOU, maybe 20% of the time. The rest of it is the gameplay that SHOULD be where yoru focus is.

#15

Yeah, it’s a game that needs to be played for people to understand what it is and how much fun it can be.

I really think a trial version of some kind with limited access (starter characters only, no expanded gear tabs or loadouts, matchmaking only with other trials unless invited into a group, that sort of thing) would do wonders.

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