I want to start off with, I am a long time player. I first started playing anarchy online when I was 11 years old back in 2008, Yes I was late to the party and the good ol’ 2002-2005 days but thats how it is. Anyway I made many memories back then and Anarchy online will forever remain in my heart and mind because of those times. I come back every few years to play around and start enjoying myself and fall into the toxic pit of nostalgia. Sadly there is always that moment when you see how truely disrespectful and awful funcom are to this community. This time i found a great group of friends a different group from last time, as the old group had the brains to quit and boycott anything funcom related. These people are the only reason I still enjoy the game. Until this christmas “event”. Do me a favour and go to your account page on the anarchy online website and login, then go to “special offers” and have yourself a little chuckle at how truly scummy they are to their few remaining loyal players. Yes thats right 12mo sub undiscounted for a promoted suit of meme armor that you can buy from the steam store page for a tenth of the price. Pretty good hey, do yourselves a favour for christmas and buy the steam store page one if you do want that meme armor. Oh yea also the daily login reward update, you get a santa sack, the store reward you get another santa sack. Why do they insist on giving us two of the same exact item which serves as just another backpack which can be bought we 300 creds? You know what, just give us 2 small backpacks instead and say merry Christmas, don’t promote over priced meme armor, dont put ridiculous rng boxes in the market at stupid prices and stop trying to ruin your only game that is worth playing by milking what little milk our udders have left, before you throw us on the grill to some obese CEO . I also want to note the only people worthy of the title of employees working on Anarchy Online are the ARKs, the people that volunteer their own time for the players. They dont even get paid, so what are the people who do get paid doing? if there even is any.
Just to clarify: the subscription offer costs the same as the normal subscription price, and the Silencer’s armour is on top of the game time. The Colonist Bundle on steam doesn’t come with game time, so the price is not comparable. This offer replaces the FC points you normally get with your sub (1440 for a year) with the listed items.
Let’s examine some examples of what do different companies do to attract audience.
Company # 1.
It gives people opportunity to taste their ice-cream for free. Ice-cream has no taste limitations, it’s just as good as paid one. People try it, like it and start to buy it next time they see it.
I am assured that Funcom has to let everyone have an account with all expansions n stuff for free during 3 months after account registration. People will have way more experience and emotions trying AO, and it’ll increase overall playerbase by way higher % than while doing the same with just froob accs.
Company #2
It understands that their product is the one among any others. They’ll get attention to it and attract more customers if they’ll either be better, or cheaper. Since FC does nothing to improve AO greatly anymore - I think they should reconsider subscription prices.
Company #3
It works on commercial market. Any “non cash-based” event prizes only work with loyal customers, who enjoy product “as is”. I really doubt Funcom has wide enough playerbase to just stand still and entertain playerbase with some nearly useless ingame prize/prizes that come to Christmas/Helloween/whatever date or something. Instead, let playerbase, current or potential, get cash-based prizes (current playerbase can get extra month/two, potential playerbase can get good discount on new subscription). It’ll be better for sure for both - loyalty and attraction.
There are so many other examples of what companies do so I don’t even know if i’ll finish writing them all until day comes to an end, but I really want Funcom to push their marketing department to seriously think about what they do regarding Anarchy Online before or during any event they announce.
I was always up to help them with this, offered this many times (one of my businesses is digital marketing agency that successfully works in 3 countries and provides excellent and successful marketing services for companies of different sectors of economics).