Egosoft Ads

[Tyranos Strategos]

Hello there i was playing eve online since 2009 and i was wishing something like eve exist but in offline mode never find anything and was pretty active on internet only 1 year ago i discovered x4 and i was amazed so much i quit eve online and now x4 is my only game ,
i mean nevernmind ,but what im trying to say is i belive there is not so efective advertisiment for x4 , becouse when i show this game to eve community "my friends was amazed " so i belive x4 deserve more attention in advertisiment. Even every youtube top 10 best space sim game video always forget about x4. Some community ambasador could come handy.

May be im wrong its just my feelling X4 is something really unique but people just dont know about it .

[The Q]

Advertisement does not come cheap. For a small company like Egosoft it makes more sense to advertise when there is a new product (a new dlc or a new game) for people to buy rather than trying to be a constant sound on the ether.
Also, since Greg has joined Egosoft, advertisement has already been improved a lot.

As for not finding videos recommending X4, that is due to algorithm analysing your search preferences. If I, as someone who hardly plays any online games, search for "top 10 best space sim game" on youtube, 5 of the top 12 results (including the first two) mention X4: Foundations, and one mentions X3: Terran Conflict.


Edit: There seems to be an error on my post counter. Says 'it cannot be found'.

[exogenesis]

I'm afraid to inform you that your next post method is not allowed.

Wondering what proportion of purchases ES get from general 'out there' ads,
versus word of mouth+ 'space community' recommendations.
Bet it's mainly the latter, cos of the niche etc...

[adeine]

It's a tough call because while X games are a gem in the rough to a niche audience the emphasis is really on the 'rough'. There's a lot of jank and issues still that won't go over well in a general audience, which also doesn't help with the learning curve (like knowing how to clip ships out of geometry by abusing OOS, etc.).

If you went on a full advertising spree, you might end up with more negative publicity than anything else. People not already committed to X games or at the very least the gameplay formula won't have the patience to try and navigate the game's detriments to figure out whether there's any redeeming qualities underneath. Relying on word of mouth for the most part isn't the worst idea with the state the game is in, since any personal recommendation (whether from a friend/streamer/youtuber/whatever) can be honest about the game's failings and help navigate them.

[Tyranos Strategos]

adeine thats acctually good thinking

[Tempest]

yeah word of mouth, is how i got my co-worker to buy the game. i think an avid X player knows who, and who not, to recommend X-games to.
(X-BTF era player myself, found out about it X due to some Demo Disc attached to some, now obsolete, gaming magazine, it blew my mind at that time)

Not a marketing expert by any means, but current Youtubers + Egosofts own YT channel + gamescom seems like a decent amount of effort to start out with. Germany iself is a special case w. more exposure there due to Cologne/Köln.

[Eyeklops]

Speaking of "word of mouth" I posted this a while back another space games subreddit. I feel it's down-to-earth and accurately describes X4. Feel free to copy from it or whatever for posting elsewhere.

I got into X4 a little over a month ago and for me it's like electronic crack. It's a good game if you like to micromanage things, setup & run fleets of AI (mining, trade, combat), create space stations (trade, defense, manufacturing, ship building), fly a capital ship, or destroy subsystems of capital ships with a fighter.

The major thing that drew me to X4 was being able to teleport to any ship I own. A fight breaks out on the other side of the map that I want to get in on? Teleport. Want to start wars on multiple fronts but "be there" to see all the best action? Teleport. Did one of your AI pilots do something retarded and start a fight they can't win? Teleport, take control & kick everybody's ass, be the hero.

I like the ability to board (shipjack) as well. Once you figure out the game mechanics to a certain point you realize it's possible to "borrow" just about any ship in the game without major penalty (even from friendly factions). Unfortunately you can't partake in the actual capture yourself.

AI can be finicky and seem retarded at times but that's usually because the player didn't set something up correctly (there are still AI bugs tho). Most problems can be worked around with inventive solutions.

Space combat is ok but certainly not ED or SC level yet it's still fun in it's own way. Graphics are ok, but again not ED or SC level. Travel on foot exists but it's not deep gameplay. All ships have some area to move around inside but the only functional items typically are the pilot seat and the teleporter. Large capital ships usually have landing pads for small and medium sized ships. On occasion I'll hang out there to watch my minions coming and going.

As the game progresses chances are high you'll spend some significant amount of time in the map screen playing "boss" managing fleets, stations, and ship emergencies. This doesn't mean you'll always miss out on good battles because the universe can be in "pause" mode while you mess with stations and issue orders to fleets/ships. Frequently in the middle of a dogfight one of my ships will message that something just tore it a new asshole. No problem. Pause. Use the map to view the ship and the situation. Queue up a few orders and go back to dogfighting.

Overall I give the game an "A+" for ideas, "B" for graphics and ship combat, and lastly a "C" for polish.