Video Game Marketing & Release Strategy (similar to 6G release)

[TaiKoi]

Looking back at the announcement of the 2021 Bronco, the reservation/pre-order process, the upcoming Build & Price and then ordering with little attention grabbing marketing in between, it seems like car companies could learn a few things on release marketing and strategy from AAA game companies. The release of this Bronco feels a bit like a big game release and I would've liked to see it handled similarly.

In games, typically, the developer/publisher would tease or announce the game with a trailer video, little details here and there, then a another trailer would release giving an exact launch date usually coupled with pre-orders going live. Then, they'd continue to release trailers or articles with more and more insight into the gameplay and other details. There isn't much vagueness with game releases. Sure, it's not uncommon for release dates to get pushed back but developers still give a new date for the intended release. Trailers and other marketing things are even given exact dates as well from developers via social media and whatnot.

Example: Bungie/Microsoft/Sony/CD Projekt Red will tweet "October 21st, 7pm , be ready...." or something like that and fans get to be excited about new info and are also given a date and time.

I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that I would prefer dates & times for everything way ahead of time from Ford and Bronco Nation on stuff like the B&P, Release date, Color & Material walkthrough, etc. and then if that date needs to change for whatever reason, that's fine, just provide a new date. Delays are understandable but complete silence or constant vagueness is just annoying and kinda weird from a major company. "Stay tuned" or "Coming soon" or "Something exciting is happening" and then weeks/months pass and nothing gets kinda old. As a fan/consumer, it can be frustrating and make you less confident in some things.

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[Misato]

All the game developers do not announce the exact release date of their product, until it's a week or 2 before releasing. This is bad for us, customers, because we wanna know the exact date, but they follow their own interests. There are no benefits for customers at all from this strategy. This is the reason why I skipped so much play time when the WoW classic was released, because I had some raids scheduled for that time. When I returned back, I took a wow boost to be on the same level as players from my guild.

 

[MVP]

I used to work in the video game industry. We don’t want the car industry to be like that.

with those announcements of dates comes heavy crunch time to wrap up a game and leaving a lot of stuff broken to meet the date.

Game ruining crashes will be left in because there isn’t time to fix it. It’s like if they knew the bronco engine will blow up if you do three donuts. Well hopefully everyone just does two.

Then we hope Sony or Microsoft never find that crash when we send it for certification.

I agree that it sucks waiting and we would like more answers but I also know what it’s like on the other side because you never know if it will all come together to be what you want.

There were times where features and levels had to be pulled out last minute because the time to fix a bug wasn’t available because there was a hard date. In the end I would rather all features get ironed out and brought to market instead of rushing something through and meeting dates.

 

[GoldenKnight]

Cyberpunk 2077, a release all automakers should look up too

 

[TaiKoi]

I forgot I made this post haha but yes, I agree that of course we don't want the auto industry to push out cars with known bugs because we can't really get a day 1 patch or future patches. I was referring more to the communication and marketing side. Good AAA game companies typically communicate gameplay details and expected production roadmap. They also update frequently & officially on social media or game sites about when trailers, more info or release dates are expected or when they change those dates. Yes all of us on B6G forums are more aware of Bronco updates and info but look at where were getting the info. Dealers that aren't supposed to tell us, people scraping the site, people inside the warehouse who aren't supposed to take pictures, etc. I wish Ford was a lot more communicative and gave us frequent clear info even if it's delays. I would love to know what they're expecting right now in terms of how many Broncos will be made in 2021. Or how many can MAP make in a day/month, etc. All that info that we guesstimate on the forums, Ford could easily give some insight on.

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