Namco talks about Dark Souls 2 Marketing

Ya, i'd hate to see them blow all their money on marketing and settle for some cheap server sytem just so they could say they had it.

Or even worse if they made it a little too "Dragon's Age" or too "Skyrim".

I'll be kinda mift if my speed runs are full of cut scenes and storylines thrown in my face instead of the tried and true formula of Demon's and Dark.

Don't get me wrong I like CG stuff, im just sayin.

No I agree, the whole point of souls is it's meant to be a full on gameplay experience- everything is in the gameplay and it's not a story to roll through, it's not just a route to multiplayer- It's man vs game- thats probably why it's drawn so many comparisons to older games of the same vein

More hosts to invade? (:

I can see getting summoned by a brand new skyrim player

I'll be like

But he'll run off and I'll be like

Then he'll Skyrim rush a mob and die and I'll be like

I know this because that's how I was when I came from skyrim.

I CAN'T WAIT to see how the marketing plays out being in Japan this time round! If it gets a fraction of what was thrown into Dragons Dogma here its gonna be awesome.

BRING ON THE DARK SOULS CAFE!!!

You know... Skyrim wouldn't be such a terrible *** game if the combat wasn't the same as Morrowind's combat system. They never improved it. That has always been my biggest issue with Skyrim.

Skyrim has Input Delay and that makes or breaks a game. If you hit R1/RT in Skyrim, there is less than a second delay before the actual attack goes off. No matter your weapon.

In Dark Souls that isn't the case, unless the server freezes (which has only happened to me once online).

I think that is my only gripe about Skyrim, and small community? World of Warcraft has an achievement called: Praise the Sun for slaying the cloud serpent Nalak. Blizzard even praises us. =)

I can't wait for E3....If Bandai/Namco want to come out with all guns blazing, we're gonna see a lot of Dark Souls there. I'm hoping they win some awards too...

Anonymous Proxy wrote:You know... Skyrim wouldn't be such a terrible *** game if the combat wasn't the same as Morrowind's combat system. They never improved it. That has always been my biggest issue with Skyrim.

Skyrim has Input Delay and that makes or breaks a game. If you hit R1/RT in Skyrim, there is less than a second delay before the actual attack goes off. No matter your weapon.

In Dark Souls that isn't the case, unless the server freezes (which has only happened to me once online).

I think that is my only gripe about Skyrim, and small community? World of Warcraft has an achievement called: Praise the Sun for slaying the cloud serpent Nalak. Blizzard even praises us. =)

well i can think of a few more gripes about SkyRim…dragons getting stuck in houses or mountains, getting hit by a giant and flying into infinity and beyond, broken quest paths, not being able to drop or store quest items, etc.

great game, but definitely not my game of the year.

You have a PROBLEM with getting hit into the air by a Giant? I find that hilarious XD

I think Skyrim/ES series is more for content in the game, not the quality of the content itself. Hense why people can play that game for 120+ Hours and still have new stuff to do in it.

I can't wait to invade the newbs. Gonna be so much fun.

Edit: Oh, and remember the Borderlands 2 Bonfire Easter Egg. We may be a Small Community, but we are pretty well known amongst the higher ups.

Slarg232 wrote:Edit: Oh, and remember the Borderlands 2 Bonfire Easter Egg. We may be a Small Community, but we are pretty well known amongst the higher ups.

Really? Damn, we're famous. I didn't even know that.

It's fab time guys

Playing Skyrim with stealth character makes the game actually pretty damn good, but anything that involves the melee combat is just...horribly, horribly done.
To me Elder Scrolls or Fallout (new ones) games have never been about the combat, but about the amazing and massive game worlds that hide hundreds of places to find and explore.

I've always rather liked the combat in elder scrolls. I press the trigger and I swing, I press the other trigger and I block. What more could I want?

Juutas, you just summed up my feelings on it. Fighting can be a distraction even. There's fun ways to fight but the real thrill is finding the hidden gems of locations. As a fighting game it's terrible but as a game world it's amazing.

"The good thing this time round is we're investing more in it from a marketing perspective,"

- Because investing more in the actual game development would be crazy... It's statements like this that irk me. I do not trust Bamco. Was nervous when they picked up Dark Souls, wary when they sidelined Miyazaki, and now terrified they may ruin the series all together. Hopefully they are giving from software full creative control, otherwise they certainly will pressure them to dumb down and appeal to a wider, skyrimier audience. Sorry, I'm very protective of my Dark Souls.

i'm not worried. FROM self publishes the Souls games in Japan. Bamco only publish on NA/EU, so i dont think they have full control over the game's development

That is certainly good to hear. I wasn't sure if Japan market was thru namco as well. But dont they own the rights to the IP? They did make Miyazaki step down, as he certainly would not do that willingly, which is what scares me. If they are only in control of distribution in EU/US, then we can rest assured From will stick to their guns.

phastings wrote:"The good thing this time round is we're investing more in it from a marketing perspective,"

- Because investing more in the actual game development would be crazy... It's statements like this that irk me. I do not trust Bamco. Was nervous when they picked up Dark Souls, wary when they sidelined Miyazaki, and now terrified they may ruin the series all together. Hopefully they are giving from software full creative control, otherwise they certainly will pressure them to dumb down and appeal to a wider, skyrimier audience. Sorry, I'm very protective of my Dark Souls.

I'm pretty sure they said they doubled the size of the development staff. I think that equates to investing in development.

SlothAlmighty wrote:

phastings wrote:"The good thing this time round is we're investing more in it from a marketing perspective,"

- Because investing more in the actual game development would be crazy... It's statements like this that irk me. I do not trust Bamco. Was nervous when they picked up Dark Souls, wary when they sidelined Miyazaki, and now terrified they may ruin the series all together. Hopefully they are giving from software full creative control, otherwise they certainly will pressure them to dumb down and appeal to a wider, skyrimier audience. Sorry, I'm very protective of my Dark Souls.

I'm pretty sure they said they doubled the size of the development staff. I think that equates to investing in development.

I am aware of the expansion of the FROM development team. Realize that the concern here lies with the statement Kirton, from Namco marketing department, has made above; why sink Millions of dollars into marketing/advertising with the expectation to compete with "massive AAA" games ala skyrim, thus creating the pressure to turn that much more of a profit, all for a game that was made popular by word of mouth.. Do you think that an aggressive, costly advertising campaign is going to sell that many more units, considering the already well established fan base who already plan to purchase it, and those who know about it but not interested in a difficult game? On that note,, don't you think that expanding the market to sell more units will ultimately usher in many complaints from casuals that the game is too difficult? People who haven't purchased these games are aware of them, and have chosen not to play solely because they are not "massive AAA"-friendly games. My concern lies with this, as Namco will most likely loose money where it could have been better spent, and ultimately justify canceling any future souls games because they blew their profit margin with over-ambitious advertising.

It is great for us they expanded development, sure, but that means they have spent that much more on overhead and have to sell more units to compensate. Now they plan to sink tons more into advertising, which does nothing for the actual game, but sets the expectation with the shareholders to sell even more units just to stay afloat.

- they already have the Souls market nailed down, thanks to FROM making an excellent series. They are getting greedy and risk blowing it all. If they do, maybe From can go back to Altus where they would be able to appeal solely to us true fans with future projects.

I getcha. its a head scratcher for sure. why is making a great game that turns a profit not good enough? ultimately though, I hope that the increased development budget = a better game, and hopefully the marketing dept stays the hell away from the development team, cause they obviously have no concept of reality.

Damn straight. I think we are safe with the sequel, but am just wary with all that has happened to other IPs when publishers go for the green and abandon the established fan base. I had the same concerns with namco before only to have said concerns dispelled by the greatness that is dark souls.

Advertising tends to create confirmation biase: "the product sold great! thanks, advertising!" Its effective to educate the masses on a new product/service, but I just don't see a need for it under the circumstances and think its waisteful.

There is a need for it.

My favorite fighting game, Skullgirls, is advertised only by the developer himself and word of mouth by his community of players. It's not very effective, and no one plays it because they either haven't heard about it, or haven't heard enough about it. It kinda sucks, honestly.

I don't know about need vs no need for marketing. I think it can work both ways with the souls series.

However, it does make me think about a great movie that may have tanked in the theatres,
but became a smash hit on DVD...Spaceballs.<---awesome movie.

I think its safe to say Dark Souls 2 will hit decent numbers upon release based on the established customer base alone. I also think FROM has made Namco aware of how leery they should be in regards to "hype" and "marketing" and how that could easily affect the creative process and it's implementation.

I'm sure FROM has made it clear that if Namco pushes them into an early release of an unfinished product, their established LOYAL customer fan base will EAT THE GAME ALIVE and commence a "smear campaign" that would ruin the game's image in a matter of days, maybe hours.

With that said, I think Namco would be wise to let FROM do their thing, and if that means implementing an aggressive marketing campaign 2 months later than expected, then that's just what it means.

The customer base grew from Demon's to Dark, they need to keep that type of momentum and let the 3 month post release numbers, be just as impressive, if not more impressive than the opening month sales.

Dark Souls 2 has all the potential to be a sleeper hit like Spaceballs, that's A-Okay with me.

Blockbusters are cool too I guess, just don't EFF UP THE GAME NAMCO/FROM!!...

....we're serious.

I like where your heads at, animaal. Yes, ftw on that space balls analogy! "The radar appears to be jammed, sir.. Raspberry.. Only one man would dare use raspberry.. LONESTAR!"

- I think we should be getting a fan focused sequel with everything that has been said in interviews and from the gameplay reveal. We may loose some things, but probably nothing game-breaking. I take comfort in how quick Namco was to retract the "easy mode" statement after we all blew up the net in rage. Shows they are listening to us, and hopefully conscious of our collective scrutiny.

I found some good points made by Vaati in his videos on youtube. He does DkS 2 gameplay interview analysis vids that clear the air on some concerns from fans. He references an interview from a foreign videogame mag with fromsoft, where lead developer Tanimura state that:
- "The relationship between From and Namco is good. Namco gives us a lot of freedom in terms of what we want to create, and we as From software are really able to pursue what we want to deliver to the [fans], so the relationship there is great."

to find this, you can watch the video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksava1vFTw

It is insightful stuff. I wish I had this information before I jumped to conclusions and pointed fingers at Namco, but then again cant be 100% sure they are not just pulling the wool over our eyes with quotes like this.