View Single Post
Old 12-07-2007, 05:53 AM   #5
Sergeytov
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 50
Sergeytov is on a distinguished road
Re: Can "Not Newbie-Friendly" be a Selling Point?

Anyone remember Ninja Gaiden (the one released a few years ago, not the old NES ones), which got a lot of free promotion (and likely more than a few players) for having a reputation of being crazy hard? I think you could certainly say a game is 'very challenging' and get some people who are into that.

As for saying 'not newbie friendly?' - I think this is the wrong way to look at the question. I always though of newbie friendly as 'Willing to give newbies the basic information and tools to succeed.' - I haven't played 4D, but Molly's example sounds like it'd be newbie friendly, since (in theory) a newbie and quest school should give a new player all they need to know to be able to get going, and is likely augmented by help files.

Hm, maybe a better question to start with is: "What is newbie friendly?" - For the purposes of this post, let us say newbie friendly has a definition of: "This MU* provides the resources and basic game training to allow a new player to MU*ing and this MU* a reasonable chance of success in playing the game." This means things like a newbie school if needed, a web site, help files, a wiki, perhaps a few pointers like 'help newbie' or a newbie section within a wiki.

If we assume this definition I provided, I think advertising as not newbie friendly is generally detrimental. Maybe you could get a few who want to be in an 'exclusive' club, but generally detrimental. However, I think my first point about challenging games could be advertised quite well, and may be closer to the question you're asking.
Sergeytov is offline   Reply With Quote