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CO's Market Niche, a Suggestion
quasimojo1
Posts: 642 Arc User
Basic Thesis:
1.) With the sunsetting of CoX, Champions Online's only remaining competitors in the superhero MMO market, DC Universe Online and Marvel Heroes, are SIMPLER games that appeal to a younger demographic.
2.) Champions Online's competitive advantage is its excellent character creation functionality and combat system, which likely appeal more to a more mature type of player.
3.) Much (certainly not all) of Champions Online's current content, writing, and marketing seems geared towards a younger demographic, which is in my opinion inconsistent with the game's market niche.
Suggestion:
Focus on owning the older demographic within the superhero genre. Create content with more mature themes and better writing (e.g. "Dark Champions"). The artwork and systems are fine; perhaps you just need to hire a writer or two.
1.) With the sunsetting of CoX, Champions Online's only remaining competitors in the superhero MMO market, DC Universe Online and Marvel Heroes, are SIMPLER games that appeal to a younger demographic.
2.) Champions Online's competitive advantage is its excellent character creation functionality and combat system, which likely appeal more to a more mature type of player.
3.) Much (certainly not all) of Champions Online's current content, writing, and marketing seems geared towards a younger demographic, which is in my opinion inconsistent with the game's market niche.
Suggestion:
Focus on owning the older demographic within the superhero genre. Create content with more mature themes and better writing (e.g. "Dark Champions"). The artwork and systems are fine; perhaps you just need to hire a writer or two.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
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Comments
While I'll agree that they need more content desperately. Darker is not better, and is not needed, or even wanted by me.
A lot of us playing this game started reading comic's in the 70's though early 90's. We're not interested in the darker side of super heroes. If anything we prefer our good guys to be good guys, not some sort of deeply scared and troubled person out for vengeance.
And yet the theme of the average costume that can be found roaming throughout this game and the frequent complaints I've seen voiced by what I consider to be the silver-age minority as to the number of dark and demonic themed toons that can be found in this game seems to disagree with you (and 90's comics actually had a LOT of dark themed characters, so I'm not sure bringing that up exactly supports the position for no dark stuff).
Still, we have no clear cut way to determine everyone's preference (they could run a poll, for example, but the only info they'd get is from those that actually learn of the poll and participate). But I personally prefer the darker, more mature stuff (or just ANYTHING that isn't one dimensional characters and storyline written with a pre-teen in mind), and none of my character's are traditional, tights wearing types (well, maybe one I started out as a joke about the game's name filter, but that's it).
Whiteout and Aftershock are prime examples of the direction I would love this game to take. Interesting plot twists, compelling story, and a touch of SciFi horror. The Vibora Bay apocalypse and nighthawk stuff wasn't too bad either.
Yes I agree a more mature content (including a bit more blood and gore, but only when it looks totally awesome artistically, not just senseless gore) themes that deal with more complex issues, and to be frank just new explorable content like a new zone or comic series period, that's is welcome and wanted!
Also, dark is good but you want to add some holy or classical superhero moral type themes too. You know, like the kinds of stuff we used to love on our old superhero cartoons. Batman, superman, heck even G.I.Joe, all upstanding members of society, with a vigilante side taking the fight to the bad guys undercover. Watchmen is good, but too distopian for my tastes. Gotta make sure you have distopian but then finish with utopian that leaves the read/viewer/player with a positive, uplifting feeling/aftertaste. Look at Star Trek, utopian actually sells a bit better than distopian. And in the case of a show like Firefly, it has distopian but the characters in it make it have positive endings because they strive for good in an harsh world.
PS: The Half-Life franchise which is a rated 'M' title, Call of Duty (which has some pretty graphic violence, let's be honest), Gears of War, etc. all have tons and tons of kids playing them. How do I know this? Their voices. Can't hide a prepubescent voice over a mic, or the immature attitudes. So making things a bit more realist in terms of graphics and scariness won't actually push your marker away from kids, they'll actually be more wanting to play it.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
I don't agree with the dark side, but if that brings more players and happier customers... well *wears black latex tights and high heel boots* bring it scruffy :cool:
=^ _ ^= Kitty Lives!
That, and young people wanting to be bada**. And nothing says bada** like dark and demonic. (Okay, maybe older players, too. Now get off my lawn.)
As a new player, I have to say I'm pretty surprised at the number of mystic foes... that's colored by my starting during Blood Moon, but in the early missions I'm dealing with gangs... who ultimately are wrapped up in a demonic summoning. Then there's more demons and magic in Canada. I don't think I've run into magic in the desert yet, but it won't surprise me if I do. Based on how early that content is, I don't expect that it was driven by player expectations... maybe some of the player tendency is influenced by the nature of the content presented.
I have to say... the thing that's *really* surprised me is how I feel like I'm not *quite* in a superhero world. I'm fighting aliens, gangs, zombies, demons, escaped prisoners, survivalist dissidents, robots... but where are the "supervillains in tights", i.e. more traditional comic book "named" villains? There were a few in Resistance, but for the most part, at level 20, I feel like I'm still not considered a "superhero" (despite everyone telling me I'm a powerful superhero since level 1, and the most powerful heroes feeling the need to call upon my unique talents). But I feel like the writers didn't really quite "get" what superhero comics or Champions were about.
The biggest thing that makes me feel that way is that I'm rarely dealing with "named" villains. They agents just get more powerful, and they're generic, plentiful and interchangeable.
As one of the "mature" market (I'm 44 and played Champions table-top in the 80's and 90's), I'd like to see more complex stories. I'm not real experienced with MMOs (Wizard 101 with my son, and a few hours of EVE Online), and I recognize that the stories can't be *too* complex. But it kind of bothers me that I can play the game without reading the "flavor text" at all... just look at the mission goals and accomplish them without regard for who I'm shooting at. It would be cool if someone would consider just a few branching story lines... that would be *seriously* useful for replay. I'd like to actually have to *think* about what I'm being asked to do. Imagine what kind of story you could build, and how much you could make the player think, if you made one of the police contacts corrupt, using the hero for his own ends... and inserted ways for the player to figure out what was going on and a *choice* about how to handle it. "Reveal Sgt Foo's Corruption" doesn't become a mission option until you've declined a couple corrupt missions, for instance. If you just keep doing his dirty work without question, he keeps using you and you don't know it until you find yourself fighting other heroes, accusing you of being a criminal.
Maybe that's extremely niche and wouldn't appeal to 90% of the MMO crowd, but something that simple would breathe a lot of life into the game for me. As a long-time table-top roleplayer, for whom character and story matter, MMOs seem to still be very much in their infancy when it comes to the "roleplaying" portion of MMORPG.
Some of that could be addressed if they gave the community tools to create their own content. They'd have to find a way to vet content, or otherwise manage quality control, but the community could build new content far faster than a paid staff can.
Ok you did a better job of wording this than me. A bit of utopian good-guy-ness is needed. It helps to make the bad guys, well, really bad, and the good guys quite noble in-spite of their flaws.
The difference between good and evil is that good guys actually worry about being evil. Evil doesn't care if some actions are good, heck sometimes that's just to put on a front to make people trust you more so you can take advantage of them later (i.e.: Lex Luthor).
Some of the best villians are the ones that play politics and put on a public front of being popular and noble, but are really son-of-a-b**** jerks behind the scenes. Hunger Games has a good example of this btw.
A current TV show I'm loving for the emphasis on being a good guy is Merlin. Merlin and King Authur. Other shows like Stargate SG-1 did a really good job of having some good guys you could really root for and some darker themes and really bad bad-guys. It's good storytelling, and uplifting so you want to keep watching it.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Haven't tried Aftershock out yet, but Whiteout isn't quite the direction I would want the game to take. Idiot balls, unanswered questions, and dead bodies all over don't sit too well with me. Especially the instances where I wound up too late to save piles of soldiers and scientists. That was my biggest complaint with some of the later CoH plots, and I groaned when I saw it again here. I don't mind a body here and there for mystery and tension, but as heroes myself, Justiciar, and Steelhead should have been able to save more people than we actually did.
I disagree. Unless you're superman, you're not going to be able to save everybody. Would it be nice if you save more? Certainly! But saying you're upset with the style simply because you should be able to save everybody is kind of silly. Cruel or not, it's boring storytelling if the hero is always able to save everybody.
That's the point they are trying to make at the 2:25 mark in the following parody video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seBpXt8_6xs
PS: How is it you haven't tried Aftershock? I must have run that series like 50 times at least by now, on Elite too. Who knows, maybe more. It's one of my favorites, and until On Alert it had some pretty sweet loot drops too when you did it on Elite. Seems to me you have a very limited view of the game...
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Tweak pre 40 lairs into new lvl 40 versions and release them one by one.
If something, CO needs to open to a wide range of tastes like classic superhero, dark superhero, animeish/fantasy heros, etc.
Which is why I said early 90's. The dark stuff didn't really start until later. A lot of that was started by Image and Frank Miller with Batman. Until then the darkest stuff you saw was Ghost Rider.
Dark != More mature.
We have plenty of dark stuff in this game, between some of the AP and VB. What we need IMO is more classic super hero content.
Feel free to disagree with me. But I will make it clear that I at least don't want anymore darkness in my super hero MMO.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Like I said, I don't mind a body here and there to help build tension and villainy. Its when I lose whole buildings worth of researchers and a lot of good men from Steelhead that I feel less like a hero and more like a superpowered clean-up crew. It nags at my pre-Dark Age notions that a beacon of hope shouldn't make a habit of arriving far too late.
I now have four alts just out of Westside, and one north of 20, and she's been too busy having a ball on Monster Island to go back to adventure/comic series just yet.
That's pretty much what I meant. There were a couple between myself and Justiciar in the first couple chapters, after that we got back in business.
Champions Online is in competition with Marvel Heroes as much as it's in competition with Diablo III. It's an instanced game, in the vein of Guild Wars 1. It doesn't even exist within the same market space. The two will co-exist because they're vying for different kinds of players. Chalk and cheese.
The difference between Champions Online and DC Universe Online, in my opinion, is that CO is more focused towards a cohesive, strong PvE experience with a lot of choice as to how you play, and DCUO is more of a focused PvP game. So in my opinion, competition would be best served here by concentrating on CO's PvE to emphasise the separation of CO's PvE focus.
CO doesn't restrict you in the way that DCUO does. "Be the hero you want to be." is their tagline. And it continues to be. That along with the more casual friendly nature of the game should be what they focus on with marketing. They need to make it clear that Champions Online is a very casual-friendly game. Far, far more so than even GW2.
I agree with the notion of creativity, but your notion that it suits an older audience is utterly false in my opinion. Truly wrong.
When you think of creativity, you think of kids. Kids do love to play around. Champions Online has a link to stuff like LEGO and Minecraft at its core. And you're telling me that these things aren't kid accessible? To me, this just sounds like you want kids out of your game. Really? It's your game, now? To hell with those kids, and all that?
I thought it was a game where we could all have fun, personally. A game where you could bring your kids in and introduce them to the joys of putting together their own hero, something that they had a creative stake in. I guess I must have been wrong, eh? But I don't think I am, as my words ring true.
Honestly, saying CO isn't for kids is like saying Minecraft isn't for kids.
So '60s Batman was probably aimed at purely a younger audience, too?
No, it's cheesy and it's accessible. What it aims for is a family audience, something that everyone could enjoy. So, what, you'd like to start seeing VIPER do... what? Cussing? Making crude jokes in poor taste? That's not mature, you know. It's the contrary, it's quite immature.
I'm all for good writing, but I see no need to make CO an 18+ game. You can have good writing without turning all of my favourite characters into potty mouths.
Responses above.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
While people preach the greatness of the Silver Age, that era was also known for shoveling out hot garbage into a dumpster fire. If you don't believe me, go back and look at the massive amounts of FAIL they cranked out back then. Most people hated the 90's for Rob Leifeld's art. For every abomination of anatomy Rob Leifeld drew, there was an entire Silver Age character that was just as much an abomination of concept, writing, and execution. I find most of them today boring and lazily written, considering that the vast majority of them are DC characters. Why? Because their idea of 'changing things up' was making a gay Green Lantern and wiping their own butts with years of cobbled-together garbage and making a half-assed 'reboot' of the series.
Another point I'd like to make is this- YES, I am tired of seeing WoD vampires, Demons, and Uberdark Sorcerer Assassins everywhere. BUT you have no place in saying what people should be. I play a Cyborg supersoldier, a Champion of the Fourth Horseman, and a few other random concepts. When people roll their eyes at 'there being a lack of Superheroes in a Superhero game', I get it. But everyone has a different idea of their hero. There is nothing wrong with superheroes that use guns, magic, dark powers, or whatever. A lot of people aren't identifying with the Cape's and Tights these days, because it's a different society. . You want CO to only cater to traditional superheroes? Go f**k yourself in a grease vat. MY hero. MY concept. Not yours. If you want your hero universe to be strictly capes and tights, go buy some action figures and lock yourself in your room forever.
Now, on to my point:
I would rather NOT see more paranormal/magic/Edomite themes in this game. There's already WAY too much of it. An entire zone, Vibora Bay, seems completely out of place and offers nothing but paranormal content. Demonflame and Aftershock are both paranormal. Every full moon and Halloween we get to play the same old garbage Takofanes event, and the once chance for change in pace- the Dracul/Victorian England content went to the abyss faster than a fat girl can make a dating profile on Match.com.
What we DO need is some serious stories. Whiteout was fantastic in comparison to the rest. I'd really like less cheese, more good writing. While some of us claim to have 'grown up on silver age comics', others of us have 'grown up' and find this tiresome. I'm not saying one has to be sacrificed over the other, but there's a mewling minority asking about serious 'classic' superhero content while most of us just want decent content. If you want 'classic' superhero content, look no further than the busted and failed nemesis system. It caters explicitly to nothing more than traditional superheroes and leaves everyone else shaking their heads.
Speak for yourself, my first comic was the ninja turtles my little pony followed by Spawn, I couldn't read in the 70s....because I wasn't born till 85.
...He did...
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
Those of you trying to act like anthros, mages, vampires, space knights, bounty hunters or whatever else you want to throw in here aren't fitting of the superhero genre need to reexamine the genre as a whole. We've quite literally seen all of what I listed above in some capacity, and to act like Capes and Tights is what all Superheroes are about, is equal to acting like all Anime is about guys in Martial Arts Gis or all Sci Fi is plastic forehead aliens.
Furthermore, it's been proven time and time that all forms of storytelling is made more rich by the inclusion of inter-character or inter-group struggle, as suspension of disbelief is much easier to maintain when what we see in the story we're being told mirrors reality in some fashion. Not everything needs to be Watchmen, or new Battlestar Galactica, but the fact is campy comic heroes didn't lose their style because a lack of grim, but a lack of realism, as people of virtue always have their fare share of vices.
A bit of camp is fine. A gigantic immersion shattering comet of corny isn't.
While I don't agree with everything he says, and actually think CO needs more serious, mature content (not necessarily dark: Think how 90's X-Men had an element of grim seriousness but wasn't overwhelmed by it), the persecution of people for using a so called "straw man argument" is a mainstay of internet users who have much to hide.
People who don't want other people pointing out what's REALLY on their mind, what their, real, second or hidden agenda is resort to accusations of a "straw man argument" as a logical fallacy when in fact the very idea of a "straw man argument" is a logical fallacy in itself, due to the fact that what people say is often not what they mean, or are really thinking.
I would suggest to refrain from using that term as it holds no ground and wins you no headway in an argument and anyone with sufficient knowledge sees right through it to find the paper thin attempt at covering your own or someone elses rear.
Furthermore, whether you want to accept it or not, "dark" heroes are very, very commonly accentuated by an excess of swearing, to the point where material that is expected to be deep into grimdark territory is practically expected to have characters swearing like a sailor. This isn't even a "strawman argument" even if we accept such a foolish notion to be acceptable to allow people to hide their dirty laundry.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
I disagree that DC is a simpler game then CO. CO is about as simple as it gets when it comes to games, setting your eb to never cancel, then by picking an appropriate passive and block you can pretty much go through the game with out any tactics/challenge.
While this is my opinion I feel that DCUO's combat is far more complex then what we have here. The targetting and combat in general in DCUO takes a lot of getting use to. In DCUO you can only use a set number of abilities at a time, and last time I checked you couldn't swap out in combat.
I also disagree that DCUO appeals to a younger demographic, as a villian you are able to push people over ledges, beat up random citizens, or running around the dark and gritty Gothom city as either villain or hero hasn't really given me a sense for it actually having a target demographic as far as age is concerned.
Completely agreed.
Bologna.
Accusing someone of something that they have not done, not said, nor even come close to suggesting so that you can refute, "their," position, is ridiculous.
Someone suggesting that they think that CO appeals more to adults than to children is not suggesting, "to hell with kids."
Someone suggesting that they think that CO appeals more to adults than to children is not saying that it is, "not accessible to children."
Someone suggesting that they think that CO appeals more to adults than to children is not "saying CO isn't for kids is like saying Minecraft isn't for kids."
Feel free to defend dishonesty all you like.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
If only The Brothers Karamazov had a guy with knives in his hands. Just think of how much more adult and mature it would have been.
Wait? Whaaaa..?
When they started labeling comics as "mature and adult" in the '90s, what they really meant was, "Hey, cool, we get to draw blood in the panels now!" The storylines and characters were just as shallow and immature as ever - more so, in some cases (Youngblood, I'm looking at you).
Dialog began to improve dramatically in the mid-'80s, thankfully. OTOH, the best we've been able to do for making more mature stories has been when Joss Whedon turned X-Men into a soap (an entertaining soap, where there's every possibility the dead wife might return from the actual grave without any of this mistaken-identity nonsense, but a soap nonetheless). Nothing comparable to The Old Man and the Sea has emerged from this medium yet. And in my not-so-very-freaking-humble opinion, that's a good thing. It's kind of nice to have a setting where good triumphs over evil in the near term. (I have found good generally wins in the real world, too - but sometimes it takes a few decades, or even centuries...)
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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That's not to say there wouldn't be a place for that, though. The Punisher exists in the same universe as Captain America, after all.
One thing I think is strange about this game is that its tagline is "be the hero you want to be," and it follows through with that as far as the character creation goes, but as far as the content, you don't really have any options. You're basically forced to interact with the same elements whether you're a gritty anti-hero or a clean-cut Superman. And that's a tragedy.
In the same way that the game lets you create whatever character you want, the game should give you the option to play the way you want. If you want to go around delivering hard justice Punisher style, you should have that option. To be more nuanced, you should also be able to take the Batman "dark but no killing" approach. You should be able to engage in the ultra-heroics of Superman. You should even be able to be Foxbat, the Second Coming, if that's what you want.
I'm not saying the game should go down any singular path; I'm saying it should let the player go down any path.
But above all, it should all be well-written. Even if they don't want to add content that suits the whole spectrum of the superhero genre, I would settle for what content they do have being quality. And that's something that's seriously lacking, especially in the beginning of the game (punctuated by the laughable voice-acting, I might add).
No. This game is tacky, lighthearted and funny. I like that it's not doom and gloom self satisfied writing with crappy RP pretendy drama. That was the worst thing about COH. I'm 23 years old btw.
I'd like more mature treatment of stories, that DOES NOT mean darker stories, but by focusing on the consequences stories do become darker in tone, which does not mena more violence or gore, either.
Someone mentioned the 70, 80 and 90s comics... there are great examples of DARK and well written stories on that period:
Neal Adam's Green Lantern/Green Arrow
Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run (more of a horror book, but shows how to deal with the supernatural in a wonderful way)
Dennis O'Neil's run on The Question
Mike Grell's Green Arrow
Frank Miller's Daredevil
Dennis O'Neil introduction of Ras al Ghul in the 70s
The overall comedic Justice League International of Keith Giffen had one of the darkest stories you could read, when Despero returns, and Justice League Europe had the Extremists storyline. True gems.
Cary Bates's Captain Atom was a very good example of a more mature approach to superheroing without being psychotic or gory, but displaying great deal of inernal conflict
For Batman we had The Killing Joke, a death in the family, the wonderful "Legends of the Dark Knight" run, just to name a few.
Superman? Glad you ask. Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, Dark Knight over Metropolis, or during the Invasion event Superman dealing with killing the pocket dimension kryptonian villains and then the long self imposed exile in space, the introduction of the Erradicator.
More into the 90s. Peter David's Aquaman (The hook!!! best Aquaman version to date!)
Grant Morrison's JLA, or Animal Man run.
Coming from someone who regularly abuses this "straw man" nonsense, this is to be expected. However, you're still wrong.
I will very much say the same thing to you, because posing someone else's argument as a "straw man argument" is very, very, VERY much defending dishonesty. What people say, and what they think, believe, mean or do are very often two different things, and trying to act like people can't see your dirty laundry hanging out on the line is foolish to say the least. People will- rightfully- call it out as they see fit.
If you're called out on something, it is on you to (or not to) defend against those accusations whether you like them or not. This "straw man argument" nonsense is unacceptable.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
New, darker content? It might keep some of the current players happy, but the likelihood of dark content bringing in a flood of new players (or even enough to justify a larger re-investment)? My guess would be "exceptionally slim." To see the good in this game, a player would first have to overlook its inadequacies, and that's a tough sell in a saturated MMO market.
My personal feeling is that the game's basic problem is that it lacks polish; and some of CO's systems STILL suck -- a holdover from management's initial approach of "release early, fix later [and here's hoping we have the budget to fix things]." Lack of content is, I believe, simply a symptom of that approach. And the lack never got properly fixed because of the absurdly poor subscription retention the management "managed" to achieve.
Seriously.
Stop it.
Or have you seen new missions with movie quotes or puns in titles?
...or have you seen any new missions.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
If I spend all my time leveling characters 1-20 and all the missions from 1-20 have punny movie quote titles then that's pretty much all I've seen. Sorry I'm not counting any of the new level 40 missions that you know..I can play right now. Clearly.
The fact of the matter is I (or anyone else) shouldn't have to suffer through 20 levels of "mail to the chief" before we get somewhere tolerable every time we make a new character.
Be fair, have you seen any new missions, period?
Yup. That's why I alert instead.