Why don't we just make our own rugby game

[TRF_Cymro]

It looks from the outside like an easy and cheap form of marketing, but Facebook for example limits the reach of any post you make to a fraction of your audience and makes you pay to reach more than that. You might have 1 million followers of a particular page, but you regular posts are only going to top out at reaching 10k of those users at best. It costs thousands of dollars to get a post to have wider distribution than that. Even then, to convert somebody from seeing a post to interacting with a post to then making a meaningful interaction like a pre-order or a purchase... you are then talking about a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the audience.

We now spend between US$100k-1m a month on Facebook alone in order to get the results we want, and that doesn't even include the cost of the people required to produce the content and manage the campaigns. It's not the "free" marketing channel general users think it is.

Well aware of this. Had some insight into it through work and relatives within the social media marketing industry, know how much work is needed but also aware of the massive benefits of it. Still stand by what I know and see as little meaningful interaction from some companies on social media. Whether it leads to one sale or more or actually responding to a comment or two, it makes a difference to the potential buyer / audience. Even what nik said above is the way to go, again it all depends on the creativity of the people in marketing / PR team to do this. Think it is negative to brush it off, there is a risk / reward but the benefits are there, I know it is not going to be easy, far from it.

 

[MojoPin]

A well-run company with a pr team or even just an exploited PR person on a starting salary can drum up anticipation and excitement for the game on Social media. Heck the developers could do it even but let them concentrate on the game.

I can continue with a full marketing and PR plan for these companies, its not that hard, you need to play the real-world game in this modern era. Also,a good PR person makes a lot of journalist buddies, and this can do very favourable things for your ratings...

I get that these small developers also need to make money, so can't just reinvest their profits back into development, and that's probably why small developers have not brought us the game we want since Rugby 08.

Trust me, video games PR is not as easy as you make it out to be.

 

[Mario]

Well aware of this. Had some insight into it through work and relatives within the social media marketing industry, know how much work is needed but also aware of the massive benefits of it. Still stand by what I know and see as little meaningful interaction from some companies on social media. Whether it leads to one sale or more or actually responding to a comment or two, it makes a difference to the potential buyer / audience. Even what nik said above is the way to go, again it all depends on the creativity of the people in marketing / PR team to do this. Think it is negative to brush it off, there is a risk / reward but the benefits are there, I know it is not going to be easy, far from it.

Not brushing it off. But this thread is full of some pretty optimistic and wishful thinking, including specifically how social media could be easily leveraged by seemingly just making a string of "funny" posts.

So, I'll just put this out there again - if it was easy to leverage other game tech, develop, consolidate licenses, market, and profit from rugby games as some people here think, EA would be making them. But they aren't, and they never will. Why aren't EA making rugby games?

 

[Hulk Hogan]

Not brushing it off. But this thread is full of some pretty optimistic and wishful thinking, including specifically how social media could be easily leveraged by seemingly just making a string of "funny" posts.

So, I'll just put this out there again - if it was easy to leverage other game tech, develop, consolidate licenses, market, and profit from rugby games as some people here think, EA would be making them. But they aren't, and they never will. Why aren't EA making rugby games?

Because EA know there is not enough money in the market for it to be profitable in the margins they're used to making. EA Sports only have 4 franchises going right now, 5 technically but one hasn't had a release since 2018, they drop any that doesn't perform.

Basically if EA were to make a game, they would either break even or fall short. People just don't understand the people aren't there. 12,000 people clamoring on facebook about the glory days of EA means just that 12,000 people in the market to buy. Now that's 12,000 being vocal. Lets assume that 10,000 aren't being vocal. 22,000 people to buy a rugby game from EA. If they sell it for $80.00 That's $1.7 million made from it.

Why would a company that makes $1.3 Billion dollars a year from in game purchases bother investing time into a game that'll at most make it $5 Million if they're lucky?

I don't have the numbers for RC1 sold or what Rugby 08 sold. But it's easy to see why no major company would waste their time and effort on Rugby.


https://www.change.org/p/an-ea-rugby-game-for-ps4-xbox-one-pc This petition only got 11,805 supporters

 

[nik]

With the RWC in Japan and addition of 7s in Olympics, the sport has grown globally since EA last made a rugby game. I assume this correlates to increase in rugby video game market also. However I don't think EA will make Rugby game in the next 5-10 years unless maybe if USA hosts a RWC.

I am guessing EA have a certain profit margin threshold, a high margin I must say, plus given the additional money that can be made from DLCs and Ultimate team etc.

But there must a decent profit to be made from Rugby games. We currently have 3 games on the market, Rugby 20, RC4 and Rugby Champions (no licenses and very basic but decent game play etc). If there is no profit to be made then why develop RC4, why they acquire licenses? Both Rugby 20 and RC4 must have forcasted good profits hence they both releasing.

This leads to another question - instead of 2 games with split licenses, where the costs of game development, overheads are doubled - what if we only had 1 game with all licenses? With all licenses the game has far reaching audience, plus the cost of only developing 1 game. The only issue I see is maybe initial outlay to get all licenses. But the point I am trying to make is if there is market for 2-3 rugby games - then sure some bigger fish (maybe not EA) is thinking we can swoop in make a fully licensed game ourselves.

P.S. I think its good to have multiple rugby games - it should improve overall rugby gaming

 

[Hulk Hogan]

With the RWC in Japan and addition of 7s in Olympics, the sport has grown globally since EA last made a rugby game. I assume this correlates to increase in rugby video game market also. However I don't think EA will make Rugby game in the next 5-10 years unless maybe if USA hosts a RWC.

I am guessing EA have a certain profit margin threshold, a high margin I must say, plus given the additional money that can be made from DLCs and Ultimate team etc.

But there must a decent profit to be made from Rugby games. We currently have 3 games on the market, Rugby 20, RC4 and Rugby Champions (no licenses and very basic but decent game play etc). If there is no profit to be made then why develop RC4, why they acquire licenses? Both Rugby 20 and RC4 must have forcasted good profits hence they both releasing.

This leads to another question - instead of 2 games with split licenses, where the costs of game development, overheads are doubled - what if we only had 1 game with all licenses? With all licenses the game has far reaching audience, plus the cost of only developing 1 game. The only issue I see is maybe initial outlay to get all licenses. But the point I am trying to make is if there is market for 2-3 rugby games - then sure some bigger fish (maybe not EA) is thinking we can swoop in make a fully licensed game ourselves.

P.S. I think its good to have multiple rugby games - it should improve overall rugby gaming

They forecast good profits for a multi million dollar company.

There is a big difference between a company worth $4 million making $1 million in profit compared to a company worth $22 billion dollars making $1 million dollars.... This is the issue people don't understand, the market is there for small companies where $1 million dollars worth of sales are worth it where as it's not even worth the effort for a big company and is thus a waste of time and resources.

 

[unrated]

If you have the marketing budget then you have it and you can use it well. If you don't then there is an alternative. It can be hard to get it right that's obvious... I'm not saying a pr campaign and high social media activity will neccesarilly give you the results of a million dollar marketing campaign, but in the absence of that million dollar marketing budget Atleast be active on your social media and interact with the journalists and especially your fans/followers because then even if you dont spend the money Atleast you are engaging with what little fans follow you, maybe It gets you a few shares and over time you can double you current follower base instead of reaching the hundred thousands you claim to need.

So yea a string of funny posts is much better that dead silence for months on your online precence. And then just coming out after a few months and posting soulles screenshot of your game is poor form. it's this all or nothing mindset regarding the pr and marketing that's why it's public precence is where it is now. It can win an IGN award for worst lifetime award in the category marketing for a game franchise

All I was saying is if you don't have the millions, there is a way to have a decent online precence by being very active around a lot of activities and not spending any money at all, there is a whole profession that attempts to do just this. Guys like mojopin says I make it out to be too easy, but in the alternative offer nothing. If you can't reach the top it does not mean you Atleast don't try with the limited resources that you have. This is my point, there is things you can do with no marketing spend. Rugby challenge is not doing it.

 

[TRF_heineken]

If you have the marketing budget then you have it and you can use it well. If you don't then there is an alternative. It can be hard to get it right that's obvious... I'm not saying a pr campaign and high social media activity will neccesarilly give you the results of a million dollar marketing campaign, but in the absence of that million dollar marketing budget Atleast be active on your social media and interact with the journalists and especially your fans/followers because then even if you dont spend the money Atleast you are engaging with what little fans follow you, maybe It gets you a few shares and over time you can double you current follower base instead of reaching the hundred thousands you claim to need.

So yea a string of funny posts is much better that dead silence for months on your online precence. And then just coming out after a few months and posting soulles screenshot of your game is poor form. it's this all or nothing mindset regarding the pr and marketing that's why it's public precence is where it is now. It can win an IGN award for worst lifetime award in the category marketing for a game franchise

All I was saying is if you don't have the millions, there is a way to have a decent online precence by being very active around a lot of activities and not spending any money at all, there is a whole profession that attempts to do just this. Guys like mojopin says I make it out to be too easy, but in the alternative offer nothing. If you can't reach the top it does not mean you Atleast don't try with the limited resources that you have. This is my point, there is things you can do with no marketing spend. Rugby challenge is not doing it.

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