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Advertising for Echoes


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Because the game is coming out in only a few months, when do you think they will start advertising outside of directs? Lack of advertising is theorized to be one of the major causes of the poor tellius and SD sales. This will matter a great deal in the series progression because this game appears to be an experiment to see whether or not Fire  Emblem will sell well without things like fanservice, MUs, children, plots without politics, etc. and if advertising is not there, they will likely pull a radiant dawn and never go more traditionally again. Opinions?

 

 

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I have no idea why we have relatively little information about this game when it's going to be released very soon. IS should have some sort of advertising campaign. That's what helped Fates sell very well. 

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1 hour ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

Because the game is coming out in only a few months, when do you think they will start advertising outside of directs? Lack of advertising is theorized to be one of the major causes of the poor tellius and SD sales.

Agreed that one of the main reasons that Shadow Dragon and the Tellius series did so poorly is a lack of any actual advertising. But also keep in mind that the franchise was waning until it's near death at New Mystery's hands.

1 hour ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

. This will matter a great deal in the series progression because this game appears to be an experiment to see whether or not Fire  Emblem will sell well without things like fanservice, MUs, children, plots without politics, etc.

It doesn't seem like that to me, it seems like Nintendo is doing what Nintendo does. "Let's play things safe and remake a game!" Ain't like they haven't been doing that with Mario 3(with a new coat of paint each time), nor have they done it with FE1, FE3, Metroid 1, Ocarina of Time(Directly and with a different coat of paint) and Majora's Mask

1 hour ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

 fanservice

Fire Emblem in a nutshell. Seriously, have you seen the official artwork of some of the older FE Females. >.> Example 1, Example 2, Example 3

1 hour ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

MUs,

Fire Emblem 12 both sold poorly and says hello. Behold, Chris.

1 hour ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

 children

Fire Emblem 4 and the Elibe series say hello.

1 hour ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

plots without politics,

It has always had plots that revolved around politics to some degree.

1 hour ago, KliffIsTheOG said:

 and if advertising is not there, they will likely pull a radiant dawn and never go more traditionally again. Opinions?

The fact that the series is adding optional things to it in order to innovate so that it may draw in a larger crowd is not inherently a bad thing. Again the fact that the additions to the series that most people have been complaining about for the most part, EXCEPT the My Units are 100%, completely, utterly, and absolutely... optional. The only child unit that you EVER had to create in Awakening or Fates is Lucina and that's because she was plot important. Everyone else was completely optional.

 

The fact of the matter is that not only lack of advertisement nearly killed Fire Emblem, but rather stagnation as the series had refused to change in any meaningful way since FE1. Oh and by the way, the best selling Fire Emblem game BEFORE awakening? FE7. Before THAT was FE3. The worst selling FE games were FE5 and FE12. This had to do with both poor advertising, being released at the end of their platform's lifespan. But in FE12's case, it had 11 games of the same story, except for different people being used in the positions on the triangle, where your guys are inherently good, you have to go stop the evil empire, and then find out after doing that, you have to defeat the TRUE big bad that was hastily thrown in. M. Night Shyamalan would be ashamed of these twists at this point.

 

And since I know people are going to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. Take it up with Mangs.

Edited by SSJ4 Xelon
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I am not trying to say whether or not anything is good or bad, nor that certain aspects I listed weren't present is earlier installments. My point was that it may greatly influence the series. Sorry if I caused you any confusion, Xelon. My reason why I listed those things is because they seem to be coming progressively more central to the series as a whole. (And because Echoes does not seem to have many of those things)

Edited by KliffIsTheOG
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8 hours ago, SSJ4 Xelon said:

The fact of the matter is that not only lack of advertisement nearly killed Fire Emblem, but rather stagnation as the series had refused to change in any meaningful way since FE1.

It'd be more accurate to say lack of stagnation was killing the series. Radiant Dawn's tier and split-party system resulted in the Dawn Brigade chapters being quite difficult and alienated the large user base of the Wii, and Shadow Dragon removing long-running mechanics Rescue and Support conversations, and having counter-intuitive gaiden requirements make it a black sheep even today.

Now, I don't think Echoes having a low-key campaign will hurt it. FE is a lot more visible these days, so once the Heroes hype dies down I expect it will get more exposure. The key is how different it is from Awakening/Fates, and the reaction of those who have only played those games. Personally, even though a depature from Awakening would be to my taste, I'm concerned about whether it would work long-term. When I first played Shadow Dragon after the GBA games, I hated that it wasn't the same as them. I don't expect them to react any differently.

Edited by Baldrick
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12 hours ago, Baldrick said:

It'd be more accurate to say lack of stagnation was killing the series. Radiant Dawn's tier and split-party system resulted in the Dawn Brigade chapters being quite difficult and alienated the large user base of the Wii, and Shadow Dragon removing long-running mechanics Rescue and Support conversations, and having counter-intuitive gaiden requirements make it a black sheep even today.

Now, I don't think Echoes having a low-key campaign will hurt it. FE is a lot more visible these days, so once the Heroes hype dies down I expect it will get more exposure. The key is how different it is from Awakening/Fates, and the reaction of those who have only played those games. Personally, even though a depature from Awakening would be to my taste, I'm concerned about whether it would work long-term. When I first played Shadow Dragon after the GBA games, I hated that it wasn't the same as them. I don't expect them to react any differently.

When I mentioned stagnation, I was referring in terms of story, which for the exception of Thracia 776, Blazing Sword, and Path of Radiance has been: "You are the lord of a kingdom that is invaded by your neighbor for reasons that we will tell you and then change when you're halfway through the game, because we have to have our totally unforeseen twist where you're not really fighting the bad guys, but rather people manipulated by the bad guys." 

 

Unrelated, but I'm willing to put down money that that is the exact plot structure of Fire Emblem Switch. >.>

Edited by SSJ4 Xelon
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If IS doesn't advertise this game well enough then it's (probably) back to waifu/husbando land awakening/fates-styled games from now on. IS is bravely trying to see what happens when they target old fans before newer ones and if this little experiment blows up in their face (aka the game bombs sales wise) then it's good bye this-amount-of-pandering-to-veterans from now on...maybe.

As for how IS has been handling advertising for this game, they're off to a bad start already with how they refused to upload the game's trailer outside of the direct until a few days later...effectively killing said trailer's chances of gaining lots of views and attention as it no longer had the added momentum of the rest of the direct to back it up. Then there's the fact that we're getting drip fed new information when the game is only a few months away...another bad sign indeed.

Hopefully they ramp up the amount of advertising in the future but things aren't looking good unfortunately.

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3 hours ago, SSJ4 Xelon said:

When I mentioned stagnation, I was referring in terms of story, which for the exception of Thracia 776, Blazing Sword, and Path of Radiance has been: "You are the lord of a kingdom that is invaded by your neighbor for reasons that we will tell you and then change when you're halfway through the game, because we have to have our totally unforeseen twist where you're not really fighting the bad guys, but rather people manipulated by the bad guys." 

Story is far from the main reason people play Fire Emblem even today, its not really a huge drawing point, even for the games that have decent to good stories. 

Its the characters (their personal histories and interactions even if they have little to do with the main plot) & gameplay above all else.

Edited by Jedi
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11 hours ago, SSJ4 Xelon said:

When I mentioned stagnation, I was referring in terms of story, which for the exception of Thracia 776, Blazing Sword, and Path of Radiance has been: "You are the lord of a kingdom that is invaded by your neighbor for reasons that we will tell you and then change when you're halfway through the game, because we have to have our totally unforeseen twist where you're not really fighting the bad guys, but rather people manipulated by the bad guys." 

In that sense, the story has been stagnant all through the 3DS era, and I'd hardly say those games are killing the series.

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Being honest, I've never really seen any advertising for Fire Emblem games. Of course I was following Fates since its announcement, but I've never seen anything like adverts in newspapers and on TV. Most I've ever seen must be an internet ad or two. That said, given how aggressively Nintendo is marketing the Switch, Echoes could be getting a good ad campaign, and maybe FE Switch after that (speaking of, what's the verdict on numbering with that? Is it FE15 or FE16?).

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On 2/14/2017 at 3:10 PM, SSJ4 Xelon said:

The fact that the series is adding optional things to it in order to innovate so that it may draw in a larger crowd is not inherently a bad thing. Again the fact that the additions to the series that most people have been complaining about for the most part, EXCEPT the My Units are 100%, completely, utterly, and absolutely... optional. The only child unit that you EVER had to create in Awakening or Fates is Lucina and that's because she was plot important. Everyone else was completely optional.

 

The fact of the matter is that not only lack of advertisement nearly killed Fire Emblem, but rather stagnation as the series had refused to change in any meaningful way since FE1. Oh and by the way, the best selling Fire Emblem game BEFORE awakening? FE7. Before THAT was FE3. The worst selling FE games were FE5 and FE12. This had to do with both poor advertising, being released at the end of their platform's lifespan. But in FE12's case, it had 11 games of the same story, except for different people being used in the positions on the triangle, where your guys are inherently good, you have to go stop the evil empire, and then find out after doing that, you have to defeat the TRUE big bad that was hastily thrown in. M. Night Shyamalan would be ashamed of these twists at this point.

 

And since I know people are going to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. Take it up with Mangs.

Watched the videos from Mangs, and want to point a few things out I find interesting.

First off, I find Japan's opinion of the games being "too difficult" for the West so bullshit. The West has produced some amazing and difficult strategy games. Xcom, Civilization, Age of Wonders, Starcraft, Warcraft, Total War, Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, Command and Conquer. Some of these are even arguably more difficult than all of the FE games combined, like Xcom UFO Defense. How IS came to the conclusion that their games were somehow more difficult I don't know. I understand why the earlier ones might be that way, like 5 and before it considering video games as a whole were growing. But their conclusion of it being too difficult would of been around the time of the late 90's to early 2000s when the games were being released to the GBA. Most of the games I mentioned were already well established strategy games by then. Why they never thought to try and compete in that market I will never understand. As it is some of the mechanics that made Thracia supposedly hard sounds like childs play when compared to some other mechanics in games like Xcom. Where you could lose untis to mind control, had morale issues and bravery issues, units could panic, units could kill themselves, you had to manage research, engineers, scientists, money, weapons, equipment, aircraft, etc. How they came to the conclusion of "too difficult" is beyond me. Especially since XCOM UFO Defense came out in 1995, and Thracia came out in 1999.

Another thing I find interesting is how once they released to the US, the US outsold Japan by a large margin. Then once they retreated back to Japan they hit an all time low for the series. Then right afterwards with their return to the US with Awakening, US once again outsold Japan. Really shows just how big of a Market the US is for Fire Emblem as a whole, and its only getting larger here.

 

Edited by Tolvir
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I'm not surprised anything sells more in the U.S. than in Japan, their country is like a state for us lol.

What would be interesting (and I guess I am too lazy to do the research myself) is the %population buying the game. I'm willing to bet that number is way higher in Japan.

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3 hours ago, ChibiToastExplosion said:

I'm not surprised anything sells more in the U.S. than in Japan, their country is like a state for us lol.

What would be interesting (and I guess I am too lazy to do the research myself) is the %population buying the game. I'm willing to bet that number is way higher in Japan.

Probably, but Fire Emblem is growing in the US, which would technically mean the sales will only get higher for the US, while probably staying around the same for Japan. Will be interesting to see what happens over the course of a year with Warriors, Shadows, and Switch. No doubt Heroes is going to play heavily into how they do as well. Already seeing people getting introduced to Fire Emblem through Heroes.

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Advertising, will only determine the games success in the short term. Contrary to popular belief, Awakening did not become a success because Nintendo gave it a massive marketing push compared to other FE titles. Awakening found success because it generated positive word of mouth and resonated with people outside of the hardcore fan bubble. We simply won't know if Echoes manages to do that until after April 20. 

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On 2/15/2017 at 1:17 AM, Leif said:

I have no idea why we have relatively little information about this game when it's going to be released very soon. IS should have some sort of advertising campaign. That's what helped Fates sell very well. 

The same can be said for Fates as well since that game came out in June.

I have a feeling that putting the characters in Fire Emblem Heroes might be easy enough to advertise the game simply because..well it worked for Pokemon so it can work here as well.

Honestly, considering that it has casual mode. I don't think it will do that bad.

 

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Could there be a culture thing how the marketing campaigns works? I don't know how japanese people market their games, especially remakes in this case. I'm actually looking forward to the next news drop like the direct just because of all the lack of information there is on the game.

7 hours ago, Hardin said:

Advertising, will only determine the games success in the short term. Contrary to popular belief, Awakening did not become a success because Nintendo gave it a massive marketing push compared to other FE titles. Awakening found success because it generated positive word of mouth and resonated with people outside of the hardcore fan bubble. We simply won't know if Echoes manages to do that until after April 20. 

^This, many underestimate the power of world of mouth.

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14 hours ago, FoliFF said:

Could there be a culture thing how the marketing campaigns works? I don't know how japanese people market their games, especially remakes in this case. I'm actually looking forward to the next news drop like the direct just because of all the lack of information there is on the game.

^This, many underestimate the power of world of mouth.

Awakening got benefited from the Social Media and the hype generate with the first trailers; Awakening was benefited of easier ways to got advertising, even when Nintendo of America didn't something about the game Pre-E3 2012.

Fates is the first (and it's right now the only) Main Fire Emblem Game actually advertised for Nintendo

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On 2/16/2017 at 5:30 PM, ChibiToastExplosion said:

I'm not surprised anything sells more in the U.S. than in Japan, their country is like a state for us lol.

What would be interesting (and I guess I am too lazy to do the research myself) is the %population buying the game. I'm willing to bet that number is way higher in Japan.

Japan has what? Like, 2/5 the population of the US?

So take the sales of any FE game, and see if the ratios add up. I imagine you're right that the percentage of the population would be higher in Japan, but I don't think it'd be huge, since, from what I remember, Fire Emblem seems to sell about twice the amount in the US than it does in Japan. Which is way more significant than the % of people in a given country that buy said franchise.

All this is made even more remarkable because Nintendo of America is awful at advertising anything that isn't Zelda or Mario.

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well I'm unsure how much advertisment it will be getting as the Switch will have been out for 2 months by the time it comes.

I think it might go against what the company really wants to focus on.

Edited by Captain Karnage
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3 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

well I'm unsure how much advertisment it will be getting as the Switch will have been out for 2 months by the time it comes.

I think it might go against what the company really wants to focus on.

Awakening came out a few months after the Wii U in the US, and that game became the best selling FE(Until Fates).

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4 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Awakening came out a few months after the Wii U in the US, and that game became the best selling FE(Until Fates).

but the 3DS came out the year before, they were both new systems.

Edited by Captain Karnage
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Just now, Captain Karnage said:

but the 3DS came out the year before, they were both new systems.

The 3DS was actually about two years old when Awakening came out. And that first year for the 3DS was a huge struggle.

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1 minute ago, Slumber said:

The 3DS was actually about two years old when Awakening came out. And that first year for the 3DS was a huge struggle.

The 3DS ended up doing a lot better in 2012 and 2013

and besides, the Switch is pretty much replacing both system. I think they're just holding on to the 3DS just in case the Switch starts to flop

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12 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

The 3DS ended up doing a lot better in 2012 and 2013

and besides, the Switch is pretty much replacing both system. I think they're just holding on to the 3DS just in case the Switch starts to flop

Well, the 3DS already has a massive userbase. The way Nintendo is selling the Switch makes a lot of sense. A new Zelda at launch and a new 3D single-player Mario for the holidays. However, while Nintendo seems to think of Fire Emblem as one of their bigger franchises now, it's still a very niche franchise, and it definitely won't sell 70 million units in the 2 months between the Switch release and Echoes.

Selling an FE game on the 3DS makes a lot more sense, as you'll get more of that niche audience as well as a potentially large chunk of mainstream consumers picking it up.

I think them doing Echoes on the 3DS makes sense from a business perspective, regardless of whether the Switch flops or not, and holding off on the Switch FE until the Switch has a larger install base.

That said, I think this will only remain true if NoA puts any sort of marketing behind this, which has historically been a huge problem for them. Echoes could do horribly because of this, and I don't think it will be the Switch's fault if it does.

Edited by Slumber
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