I feel as though I just finished the last chapter of “Foundation” Trilogy! And if I’m right: accolades, applause and adoration! If I’m wrong however, oh well, apophenia is a common human trait among creative types after all.
But first to set the mood and tone, the following moderator messages have appeared in the following chronological order (in another thread) - so please take note and act accordingly.
It seems to me that someone at FC is fairly intelligent and well schooled in sociology and perhaps psychology and like at the end of Isaac Asimov’s trilogy, is using it to pull off a beautiful (mass) manipulation!
Let’s look at the chronology and some details:
- In a typical “product hype cycle” format, CE version 3.0 was mentioned several months ago. This caused the first “peak of inflated expectation” followed by the expected “trough of disillusionment” beginning the cycle.
- Then just as the “slope of enlightenment” was beginning to plateau, the secondary stage of the product hype cycle was initiated with the announcement of a video to be released on June 21st. This second peak is plotted as a cotangential factor from the previous hype cycle peak off the then current plateau. It too saw it’s trough and plateau cotangential factors.
- Then on a Friday in time for people getting off work the announcement video scheduled for June 21st was accidently (cough cough) uploaded and published on Funcom’s official Steam store page for CE - where it remained for about 24 hours (a world-day cycle). This began the third cotangential product hype cycle.
- About one world-day later, we were all told it was top secret and not acceptable to discuss. This can be viewed as factor of excitation pumping up the product hype cycle based on human emotion and instinct. Everyone wants to be first, see something they’re not supposed to see, or talk about something they’re not supposed to talk about.
- Almost another world-day (certainly for the western world) the flood gates are opened further allowing us to discuss the supposedly “leaked” video - yet another nudge.
- And we can see the results of those last two marketing exertions or “manipulations”: 200+ energetic messages in a single thread in less than 24 hours.
Someone is either using their education or is having a near perfectly timed series of very happy accidents correlating to established product hype cycle theory. The result here will likely be an increased number of units sold as well as a higher TestServe participation level (if/when it hits the Test Server - June 21st or 22nd?).
Just an observational theory… 