I think there's a good chance we won't see anything significant at Sony's TGS briefing still.
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Persona Community Thread |OT8| Coming Winter 2014
- Thread starter Dantis
- Start date
I think there's a good chance we won't see anything significant at Sony's TGS briefing still.
CrimsonFist
Member
It doesn't actually say anywhere that there will be new news at the Persona event. They normally do make some mention of that.
I'll stick with expecting a trailer at Sony's show for now, but that might change when we get more details of the Persona event.
I'll stick with expecting a trailer at Sony's show for now, but that might change when we get more details of the Persona event.
Heh, the elderly reporter attends the big, local events, so doubtful.
Last year, the Atlus TGS event just showed for Persona 5 what was shown at the SCEJA conference. There's no way they would have some big showing at their TGS show this year if nothing new was shown at the conference, which is far more important. They're not going to be silly with this game's marketing anymore now that its release is impending. Things are going to be more predictable.
TheMrPliskin
Member
I'm looking forward to the stage show, hopefully we get 1 or 2 new P5 tracks or vocals for the tracks that we've already heard.
Hopefully they'll be more predictable, it would certainly be nice after almost two years of nonsense.
Hopefully they'll be more predictable, it would certainly be nice after almost two years of nonsense.
Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
I'm sure there will still be some cool stuff being shown.
Also, won't be anywhere near a computer during that Persona special. ;_;
Martylepiaf
Member
I could see a new trailer with the intro song at Sony event, and the same song played live at the concert, like they did with Dance!
Reanimatoin
Member
I'm going to not get my hopes up in order to avoid being utterly disappointed in the end.
silver.tongue
Member
Wow I was actually able to beat 2 bosses in a row in Tartarus without my party getting tired... What's going on!? Oh yeah... Yukari is not in it. :/
Plus, screw you, Tanaka. 40K just to start the link? I feel like this is something out of the Wolf of Wall Street...
Also, Elizabeth is so adorable. I was unable to hold my laugh when I saw her going down the upwards escalator. Holy shit ^_^
Any tips on getting more red shadows? I need for a couple of Elizabeth's requests...
Plus, screw you, Tanaka. 40K just to start the link? I feel like this is something out of the Wolf of Wall Street...
Also, Elizabeth is so adorable. I was unable to hold my laugh when I saw her going down the upwards escalator. Holy shit ^_^
Any tips on getting more red shadows? I need for a couple of Elizabeth's requests...
Rather cynical, don't you think? In the past, where there's been smoke there's been fire in regards to Atlus announcements.
It's actually possible, although rare, for the entire floor to be nothing but red shadows. Of course this also means you have a higher chance of running into The Reaper.
Spectrasonic
Member
Agree. Maybe I'm overthinking things, but isn't it odd to have P3 and P4 talent in an event we're assuming will be about P5? Please no more spinoff games.
Now that's dedication!
Much like the trend you speak of, if you go back to the past times there's been obvious smoke, Dantis has said the exact same thing.
This is true. I wouldn't say it reflects upon Persona 5, but the upcoming show's format is intriguing. Like CrimsonFist stated, it's occurring in the middle of the Persona Livehouse Tour 2015 (which explains why there was an empty spot that week) and the overall show is supposed to be an hour long, with a host other than the PSC duo. From the title, it's also seemingly going to just be about Persona, as opposed to last year's which had Etrian Odyssey and Devil Survivor too.
Yeah I'm aware. I'm just too nice (read: too lazy) to go back and dig through past posts and find example.
I expect something now tho. The previous three major announcements (November 2013, TGS 2014, and February 2015) all had something happen beforehand to indicate that they'd show material off. In contrast, the events where they didn't show anything off (such as the past three E3s) all just had baseless rumors or fan conjecture and not much else.
Also if nobody minds, I am going to spend today abusing the use of parentheses. Because I love abusing the English language.
silver.tongue
Member
Yes, this happenned to em a couple of times but all the shadows were gold instead. The fear of a game over is making me jump floors as soon as I hear the chains tho.
Dragon1893
Member
Don't worry guys, we'll get Persona 5 news at the event. Some live music to go along with it wont hurt, the first gameplay trailer was also shown at the end of a concert as we all know.
The last show of the Treehouse tour will be streamed to 28 theaters, pretty cool, the success these guys are having never seizes to warm my heart.
The last show of the Treehouse tour will be streamed to 28 theaters, pretty cool, the success these guys are having never seizes to warm my heart.
The funniest thing is that they still haven't publicly released PV2.
Honestly, this nightmare nonsense rollercoaster is probably far from over. I think we'll get a date, but this is most likely going to be me next week:
You act like we haven't been like this since everyone started freaking out about whether Persona 5 would actually hit the 2015 deadline.
I've been like this since the 2013 reveal. It truly has been the most interesting ride.
Son Of Sparda
Member
I wanna disagree but when it comes to P5's marketing Atlus have made stupider decisions before so anything is possible.
I just don't understand the rationale behind it. Why would they not want to promote their biggest game ever to as wide an audience as possible? Wouldn't having Persona 5 as the first big JRPG on the PS4 be a great way to entice new fans to the series?
Son Of Sparda
Member
Yeah, that's what I would like to know as well.
I'm not sure we'll ever know the real reason, but I think it's multifaceted:
1. They know P5 will sell and get attention, but they're not sure P4D or PQ will go beyond the fandom. I know this seems backwards, but think about it. The excitement is there, advertising or not. It's a big JRPG, in japanese standards. PQ and P4D are niches within a niche.
2. They honestly do want to avoid spoiling the game. There's a twinge of sincerity when they say this.
3. They're reasonably uncertain about the exact release date and don't want to set the wrong expectation that could result in a delay.
I personally think marketing budgets in gaming are bloated and unnecessarily long. Does that mean I agree with Atlus' behavior so far? Not really, I just don't think it has a this big, negative impact.
1. They know P5 will sell and get attention, but they're not sure P4D or PQ will go beyond the fandom. I know this seems backwards, but think about it. The excitement is there, advertising or not. It's a big JRPG, in japanese standards. PQ and P4D are niches within a niche.
2. They honestly do want to avoid spoiling the game. There's a twinge of sincerity when they say this.
3. They're reasonably uncertain about the exact release date and don't want to set the wrong expectation that could result in a delay.
I personally think marketing budgets in gaming are bloated and unnecessarily long. Does that mean I agree with Atlus' behavior so far? Not really, I just don't think it has a this big, negative impact.
Cannon_Fodder
Member
I think that's a good question, but I'm not sure it's one that can really be answered until the game comes out. Because while the marketing has been, uh, interesting so far, what they're going to do down the stretch is too important to ignore. Trying to figure out the rationale behind their moves won't mean much until they've made all their moves.
CrimsonFist
Member
I think part of it is that they're trying to make a big event of each trailer. You're going to get a lot more views and interest in each individual trailer if they're more infrequent with a lot of hype and buildup.
As someone who follows game marketing extremely closely, I'm pretty fascinated by the whole thing. I'm a huge proponent of less is more (even when it goes against my own paycheck!) and I do believe that word of mouth is really the needle pusher on a game like this. I also think you can condense hype into a period of a month. (Nintendo tends to pull this off, they only really focus on promoting their games about 1.5 months before launch)
I'm always looking for people who buck trends, even if it may not be necessarily on purpose.
I'm always looking for people who buck trends, even if it may not be necessarily on purpose.
Yeah the Elizabeth dates are indeed amazing. Something to keep in mind though, don't miss any of the dates.
If you miss Elizabeth date #2, you can't see #3, #4 and so on. So stay on top of that!
TheMrPliskin
Member
I think the main reason I'm interested in trailers at this point is just because I'm interested in the approach being taken to market P5. These days it's rare for a game to go this long after it's announcement with so little media for it, especially when it's something that is as long awaited as P5. I think the use of livestreams is actually really clever and seems to have worked out incredibly well for them when it comes to drawing attention to the game, it's the lulls in information after those livestreams that kind of throw it all off. I'm assuming next week will be the start of an actual marketing push though, makes more sense to start that when there's a release date in place.
Son Of Sparda
Member
Well, with all do respect to everyone's opinion I think P5's marketing has been shit.
Making individual events for each trailer the way they are doing it right now would make sure that the only people who would bother with their game are Persona fanbase. They are sacrificing the chance to bring in new people to the series for something that feels completely unnecessary.
Why would you make an event for a trailer when you can simply show it in Sony's E3 conference and attract ten times the attention that you would get from the said event? That's just stupid marketing.
Unfortunately, I think the damage is already done so there's no real point in talking about it anymore. Yeah, P5 will probably sell better than any other game in the series and will be considered a big success for Atlus. But still it won't change the fact that they had the chance to make series much more bigger, more relevant outside of Japan and wasted the opportunity.
Making individual events for each trailer the way they are doing it right now would make sure that the only people who would bother with their game are Persona fanbase. They are sacrificing the chance to bring in new people to the series for something that feels completely unnecessary.
Why would you make an event for a trailer when you can simply show it in Sony's E3 conference and attract ten times the attention that you would get from the said event? That's just stupid marketing.
Unfortunately, I think the damage is already done so there's no real point in talking about it anymore. Yeah, P5 will probably sell better than any other game in the series and will be considered a big success for Atlus. But still it won't change the fact that they had the chance to make series much more bigger, more relevant outside of Japan and wasted the opportunity.
I've always found Nintendo's strategy to be a bit of a double edge sword. On one hand, they're very good at building up hype in a shot period of time, and this definitely works to their advantage right before the release of a game. Look at what happened to Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, after all. Most companies couldn't sell an IP like Splatoon and make it work so well like Nintendo could, and the strong marketing push right before it's release definitely was a huge factor. On the other hand, if the initial reveal isn't very good, this can create a sense of distrust among their more hardcore audience. Take Super Mario 3D World, which was not initially as well received during it's E3 reveal. Or, for example, take Metroid Prime: Federation Force which definitely does not have popular reception right now. Letting negative reception grow like that without showing anything to counter it can really hurt a game down the line. We've seen countless times over the years from many companies that a moderate to poor initial reveal can cause issues. Worst case scenario you end up like EA and Insomniac Games's Fuse and your game is totally ignored after a failed retool.
In Atlus's case, I think their marketing strategy for Persona 5 is working so partially because of the build up and hype to the initial announcement/gameplay footage, and partially because said initial gameplay footage was incredibly well received. I dare say this strategy of theirs would not have worked nearly as well if the reception had been only moderately good. It definitely would have not worked with any other Atlus property, as none of them have the brand power or multi-target demographic appeal that Persona has. It's a strategy that kind of relies on the good impressions from the hardcore fanbase. Or put simply, it relies on people like us, and people who visit NeoGAF in general, to get hyped up. This is also why I feel the releasing the second PV as part of of a preorder bonus for Dacning All Night wasn't nearly as effective as releasing it as part of a bigger event, be it Atlus's own or E3, would have been. It just seemed a bit counter-productive because it didn't make that splash it needed to make after several months of no information. I doubt the more casual audiences have even seen it, and as for hardcore... well... Look at the NeoGAF threads for the first trailer (75 pages on 100ppp and it was locked) compared to the second trailer (11 pages on 100ppp) and you see a huge difference. Even ignoring the fact that the first trailer was going to be more hyped, that's a crazy drop.
For a lot of us, the news that something might be going down at TGS is pretty big. We know, realistically, for the game to launch this year the release date would have to be soon because there isn't a whole lot of the year left. And we know that Atlus isn't just going to do a silent release. There's going to be something in the month leading up to the game. So we're all probably looking to TGS for a release date or some new footage at the bare minimum. It's the sign that we can get hyped up and this game is actually going to come out and not be pushed into 2016 even for Japan. Hearing about a "Persona Special Stage" in particular brings back memories of the November 2013 event. That sounds exciting to me, even if it doesn't give us quite all the information we want.
This is the grand conceit, isn't it? That more trailers = more viewers = more mainstream attention? I'm not thoroughly convinced that's the case. I don't have the data to back up either that statement or my own beliefs. I mean, the hype cycle is fun for you and me, but I'm not convinced it leads to more fans in every single case. Would releasing PV02 at E3 really have turned that many more heads than were already turned with PV01? Would releasing PV03 next week instead of earlier really lead to that big of a difference in sales?
I don't know the answer to these questions. I have gut feelings, but I'm curious to see how it pans out. I mean, at this point, there will be people who lament that they "didn't do enough" to make it hit some really high, imaginary "mainstream" number, when i'm not sure it could hit that no matter how many trailers were released.
@Sophia: On nintendo's strategy being a double edge sword, I actually agree but I argue that, despite that, there's a diminishing returns past a certain number of days before a release date, especially with the mainstream who don't follow gaming news.
That's kind of the nutty thing to me: Everyone seems to believe that releasing more, earlier is a better strategy for capturing the mainstream, when I personally think the semi-mythical mainstream doesn't pay attention until about a month before release regardless of what marketing you're pumping out. It's the hardcore that pays attention to those initial reveals, at least according to my rudimentary and primarily anecdotal data.
This is why P5 is so fascinating to me. It's a real chance to kind of see what I've been thinking about put to practice, even if I don't think it's some broad stroke of genius and more a product of necessity.
CrimsonFist
Member
Going slightly off topic here, but I always thought it was interesting to see how Nintendo handled Federation Force compared to how Atlus handled stuff. Really, FF is no different to something like Dancing All Night, a spinoff that nobody really asked for or wanted, announced in place of a mainline game. The difference being that Atlus announced P5 right afterwards. They didn't even show us anything of it, but just a confirmation that is was coming was enough for people to suddenly turn around on PQ and P4D. Really all Nintendo needed to do to get people to like FF was to end the trailer with "Also Metroid 5, now in development" or something like that.
Back on topic, we won't really have any idea as to how effective or otherwise Atlus' marketing for Persona 5 has been until we actually see sales figures for the game.
atlusprime
Atlus PR
I'm just sad I won't be around in the forums for it. I do so enjoy the late-night chatter, but I'll be off the grid more or less the whole week of TGS. :`(
Oh I think we'll see something significant, but I think it'll be at Atlus' thing, not Sony's.
From my personal experiences observing marketing of video games, it seems to be that the key factors to good marketing are usually marketing at the right time and drumming up word of mouth from that marketing. It's not really about how much you market. Take the Wii for example. Early positive reception to the hardware (regardless of what one or two outliners on GAF may have thought) drummed up incredible word of mouth for the thing. Combined that with key marketing right before and right after it's launch, alongside very positive impressions from early adopters led to magic happening. Nintendo is, again, pretty good at this. It's why I don't really fear for Metroid Prime: Federation Force. I feel it'll eventually be re-shown off in a newer light like a lot of Nintendo titles are.
Perhaps the biggest issue with how they handled PV 2, more so than potentially missing a key event like E3, is that the method they chose ultimately took the marketing out of Atlus's hands. And while that's good in one sense, as it means people are still interested in your game, it also means you have no control or when or how it's marketed. That's never a good thing for a company. You don't want people controlling the message of your product with no input in it. That's why I found it rather baffling to release the trailer with Dancing All Night. It was a guaranteed way for it to get pirated on the internet. That's how all of us in this thread have seen it: thanks to pirates. It's also pretty hard to tell if it helped Dancing All Night's sales or not, because it didn't make a significant jump on the sales charts.
What if it was at both? ;p
Spectrasonic
Member
Personally, my current P5 hype is the lowest it's been since the initial reveal two years ago. Is that due to the
marketing? Who knows.
I'm looking forward to finally being able to talk about the game itself, rather than Atlus' handling of it.
lack of
I'm looking forward to finally being able to talk about the game itself, rather than Atlus' handling of it.
Son Of Sparda
Member
It's not about the number of trailers but rather the time and place that they show them. Showing it at E3 would definitely give the series more exposure and Persona series needs more exposure outside Japan.
Let me give you an example. I'm not really a LBP fan so when people talked about Mm's new game I wasn't that interested in seeing what it could be. So fast forward to E3. They showed Dreams and explain the concept and I was instantly sold on it.
Now, would have I bother to follow the game if they decided to skip E3 and announce it on a separate Mm only event? No freaking way.
It's the same situation with Persona. Your average gamer won't bother to watch a 72 hours live stream so that they might see something that they like. But you can be sure that most of them won't miss conferences in E3, GC and the like.
If you'll indulge me in being idealistic for a second, what I think we'll see is either a new trailer or PV2 at the Sony conference with a month release date (I.E. "November 2015") followed by more extensive info at the Persona Special Stage and/or Famitsu. I also feel it's highly likely we'll hear the opening song with lyrics too.
To be fair, these situations are nowhere near identical. Dreams is something that definitely requires showing it off to a new audience to get it. It's like the Wii in this sense; you can't really talk about it, you have to see it. In contrast, Persona 5 is not only an established genre but also an established franchise. What's important is how you get people to talk about it, and in this case the livestreams have actually worked out pretty well for Atlus.
Inquisitive_Ghost
Member
Well now you're just trying to get us all excited.
I'm replaying PQ right now; I'm already hyped up!
Yeah, it's been pretty awful for sure. There's this rhythm to game marketing that usually goes like this:
Game is announced ---> Light marketing ---> More Marketing (release date?) ---> Repeat of 2 or 3 ---> Heavy Marketing ---> Game releases
But P5's marketing has been sterile and disjointed. There has been no energy or enthusiasm outside of the PVs(the second of which wasn't even officially released worldwide). Nothing to consistently keep us excited or thrilled. The only thing driving us right now is our faith in P-studio's ability to deliver a terrific game, but you know what? It's not enough. It's not enough to just have a "great" game. Having a "great" pre-release is extremely important as well. Games like Super Smash Bros excel at this; the turnover between Smash Bros's announcement and release is usually pretty long, but the actual process of waiting wasn't too bad. In fact, it was fun. It was fun partaking in all those discussions, theories, fanart, personal stories, etc. It was really fun, and it's a damn shame there's been none of that with P5.
"But Smash is a fighting game not an RPG!"
Yes, but that shouldn't preclude P5 from having decent marketing. Catherine got it right. Persona Q got it right. Persona 5 didn't get it right.
I respect the people who prefer this strategy, but I emphatically disagree with the idea that P5's marketing has been good in any way. The only upside is that when AtlusUSA enters marketing phase, I know for a fact that it'll be awesome (I still remember those awesome Ultimax emails from Atlus Faithful).
EDIT:
P5 could be my favorite game of all time (and there's a good chance it will be) and I would still despise the marketing. The thing about P5's marketing is that it's also completely lacking in things that are seen as good as well.
Cannon_Fodder
Member
One thing I'm really looking forward to is how P5's marketing is looked back on after release. Right now, it seems like a fair portion of the complaints about P5 are about its marketing campaign missing things that are usually seen as bad. People complain about publishers pushing preorders and preorder bonuses too early (Evolve, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided), but others complain about P5 not yet being available for preorder. People complain about trailers revealing too much about new games (MGSV, FFXIII), but also the fact that very little has been shown about P5. So while this is all anecdotal, I wonder if the general tone of discussions will change with a release date (or just the game's actual release).
I definitely don't prefer the strategy they're using. I'm just insanely curious to see how it does because I think most marketing cycles are bullshit. Like I've said countless times, I don't even think it's an intentional strategy.
From a personal, "I don't give a shit how well it sells" standpoint, I kinda love it in that it's helped me go in fairly blind so far. I appreciate that.
From a personal, "I don't give a shit how well it sells" standpoint, I kinda love it in that it's helped me go in fairly blind so far. I appreciate that.
Yeah me neither. I'm a really big fan of the constant little drips of information instead. The kind of person who wants to see a screenshot every two weeks up to the release of the game just so I can dissect all the information I can out of it.
That's the thing, though: Of course everyone likes a big ol' hype cycle where it feels like the thing they love is a huge event that everyone should care about. We crave validation for our hobbies and interests. What I'm arguing is that, outside of that validation, big marketing cycles for certain games have diminishing sales returns that aren't really calculated in marketing ROI.
There's outliers on both sides, of course. There's games were more marketing would have helped while there's games like Minecraft that basically needed no marketing to catch like wildfire. Problem is, most high-selling AAA games usually have equally large marketing budgets, so it's hard to separate the two and figure out how much it helped.
I've basically been fighting a 5 year campaign to change attitudes in my company about how, when, and where games are marketed. While I've been wrong in a lot of places, there's also been a lot of stuff that has helped my case. People just don't consume advertising in the way that we're used to or the way that we think it works.
There's outliers on both sides, of course. There's games were more marketing would have helped while there's games like Minecraft that basically needed no marketing to catch like wildfire. Problem is, most high-selling AAA games usually have equally large marketing budgets, so it's hard to separate the two and figure out how much it helped.
I've basically been fighting a 5 year campaign to change attitudes in my company about how, when, and where games are marketed. While I've been wrong in a lot of places, there's also been a lot of stuff that has helped my case. People just don't consume advertising in the way that we're used to or the way that we think it works.
Yeah, where we differ is that I don't get much out of going into a game completely blind. I don't spoil myself silly, but knowing about certain things does a lot for me. Like say for example that capturing Personas in P5 is a thing. And it's awesome. I think the joy of discovering that on my own would be inferior to learning about it in advance and getting a brief rundown of it.
See, I'm like Sophia in that, if given anything, I'll dissect it into a billion pieces and make large, calculated leaps of logic. Then, if my predictions are true I'm left feeling like I already figured it out and if they're false I'm left feeling like what I thought of was cooler.
Learning about capturing Personas wouldn't bother me. But when we start getting deeper into story and other aspects, I'm gonna tear that shit apart.
Spectrasonic
Member
Hopefully there'll be a lot of happy posts for you to catch up on when you get back