Ashes Cricket General Discussion

[blockerdave]

Indeed.....how many people are really active members here and how many of us will just go out and buy every cricket game going......I wonder what the percentage of sold copies is compared with numbers of people who are active on the forums or even know Planet C exists......I bet it is tiny.........I think we all tend to vastly over-exaggerate the influence and power and importance of this place in the great scheme of things......it has none (The fact that BA are so committed to involving the community here in shaping the content of their games is because they want to and not because they have to to guarantee sales).

I'd take the (possibly narcissistic) view that a community engagement here helps drive repeat sales, in an iterated franchise game.

the feedback in this community has definitely helped make every game better, with features like online saves etc.

a non-cricket tragic that picks up ashes having never heard of or played dbc is still going to have a better experience (and be more likely to by the next ashes, or maybe other BA games) thanks to the feedback of the community, even if we are low hanging fruit sales-wise.

 

[Dutch]

I'd take the (possibly narcissistic) view that a community engagement here helps drive repeat sales, in an iterated franchise game.

the feedback in this community has definitely helped make every game better, with features like online saves etc.

a non-cricket tragic that picks up ashes having never heard of or played dbc is still going to have a better experience (and be more likely to by the next ashes, or maybe other BA games) thanks to the feedback of the community, even if we are low hanging fruit sales-wise.

Deffo no question about that, it has definitely been a two-way street where BA have benefited from as well....if I see the amount of time and hours and the trouble people have gone through to give good constructive feedback both in the forums as well as in previous beta-processes then BA have had a rich garden of user-feedback and expertise to harvest in.

 

[kulch]

I'll be brutally honest. When they say they aren't selling it to this forum are they going for the dumb masses that prefer licenses over gameplay? This forum is the heartbeat of the game. Sure we represent a tiny % of the sales but the casuals wont contribute to the long term vision of the game. They will play until the next game is out. We seldom play anything else. Surely apart from mo cap and 2 licensed teams there will be amazing feedback on this site (not other place is reliable imo) as to the other improvements to the franchise. I look forward to hearing it. TB gone is great news.

 

[Chief]

I'd take the (possibly narcissistic) view that a community engagement here helps drive repeat sales, in an iterated franchise game.

the feedback in this community has definitely helped make every game better, with features like online saves etc.

a non-cricket tragic that picks up ashes having never heard of or played dbc is still going to have a better experience (and be more likely to by the next ashes, or maybe other BA games) thanks to the feedback of the community, even if we are low hanging fruit sales-wise.

I think the community here is massively helpful in terms of improving the game.
I also know that to make the game that the community here really wants would be fiscally ruinous.

 

[BigAntStudios]

I'll be brutally honest. When they say they aren't selling it to this forum are they going for the dumb masses that prefer licenses over gameplay? This forum is the heartbeat of the game. Sure we represent a tiny % of the sales but the casuals wont contribute to the long term vision of the game. They will play until the next game is out. We seldom play anything else. Surely apart from mo cap and 2 licensed teams there will be amazing feedback on this site (not other place is reliable imo) as to the other improvements to the franchise. I look forward to hearing it. TB gone is great news.

No.

My statement was all about the campaign, not the game itself, what people want to see here is all of it, and all of it now - that is not how our campaign is designed, it is designed to maximise exposure of the game to the widest possible audience.

 

[Ace123]

Yawn !!! I guess @BigAntStudios has started their campaign too early to our (PC forum users’) liking.
The feel and the hype of a new and better cricket game is slowing sinking in

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

No.

My statement was all about the campaign, not the game itself, what people want to see here is all of it, and all of it now - that is not how our campaign is designed, it is designed to maximise exposure of the game to the widest possible audience.

I got it late but I got it nevertheless...

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Me personally, I think the marketing has been good. I mean realistically what are people looking to find out? It's a cricket game, you'll play cricket. There's a career mode, there are some licenses. Just because most of it is stuff people on here are familiar with from DBC doesn't mean it's a poor amount of information.

I've been following the Football Manager 2018 release, they come out the same week (or around about the same time) and they've only in the last week started revealing new features. That's a game with a huge established fanbase and a couple of decades of releases behind them. People know what they're gonna get. I see Ashes as a whole new thing looking to reach a whole new audience. It doesn't make much sense, to me at least, to start showing off things that are new to only people who have played the DBC series. And, why not get the surprises of changes and improvements from DBC from exploring the game.

 

[Deleted member 46200]

Yawn !!! I guess @BigAntStudios has started their campaign too early to our (PC forum users’) liking.
The feel and the hype of a new and better cricket game is slowing sinking in

Err no, they are getting their marketing strategy just right interest is building steady and increasing.... Very good PR as well.

 

[angad]

I think we need to really stop telling people how to do their jobs!

BigAntStudios is publishing the game and have a strategy in place on how they want to market the game, so let's stop telling them what to do as I am pretty sure they are much more competent than most of us here in that department and have done their research before finalizing their strategy.

If you don't like the product (after you have experienced/tested it) and have genuine feedback to give...it makes sense. But telling a publisher on how they should market their game is just plain stupid. Specially when you personally don't have anything at stake with the product or the marketing.

 

[LEFF]

When a campaign like this has to run for a few months- it would be murder to release the whole kit and caboodle day 1 of the campaign. Little video releases here and there mixed in with player likeness screenshots are perfect for this point in time.

You'll start to see more movement when the general media (in Australia) start ramping up this summer of cricket. Until then it's unlikely that BA would release anything of great insight until all eyes are on the products sell point 'the ashes'.

 

[Ajh1977]

I must admit I'd been expecting the academy to release to give people plenty of time to make players etc but I guess with the TV companies as well as ACB/ECB there's things in there we can't see yet.

Was also wondering if the Lions and Australia A will be in game too?

 

[kulch]

Is there any weather in the game? Will the stat's work this time. Will the academy create bug creep (dupes) in career mode? Is career mode T20 fest at club level still or are there 2 day matches? Surely these can be answered in yes/no format right now. I guess we will find out on this forum once the game is released.

 

[IceAgeComing]

I'd quite like to ask @BigAntStudios a little question that's not entirely related to the game just because I've been wondering it.

What exactly is needed (roughly) in order to make the Academy (or whatever it'll be called in Ashes Cricket) a cross-platform thing, and how easy is it to do? The reason that I ask this is that WWE 2k18 just came out and their equivalent of the Academy is not cross-platform and the continual reason given is that they can't do it because the console makers refuse to allow them to do it which strikes me as being just a total cop-out. It just strikes me as being a little odd that (no offence) a relatively small game developer manages to put together a cross-platform very sophisticated character sharing tool: while one of the biggest games companies in the world with an incredibly lucrative licence (well, the Ashes is also one of those but before that Big Ant didn't really have that many licences!) apparently can't manage what Big Ant did three years ago - or last year, if you include the logo sharing thing! I mean it is 2k games who have a certain reputation plus the WWE games haven't had lots of money put into them for many many years so its not that surprising...

 

[blockerdave]

I think we need to really stop telling people how to do their jobs!

BigAntStudios is publishing the game and have a strategy in place on how they want to market the game, so let's stop telling them what to do as I am pretty sure they are much more competent than most of us here in that department and have done their research before finalizing their strategy.

If you don't like the product (after you have experienced/tested it) and have genuine feedback to give...it makes sense. But telling a publisher on how they should market their game is just plain stupid. Specially when you personally don't have anything at stake with the product or the marketing.

But we can criticise the community right?

Like to say - the vast majority of this community will play the vast majority of their playtime with unlicensed teams and content, so why are they excited about a release where all they have to go on so far is licenses and animation?? Because that was my point.

The exposure of the campaign has clearly validated what BA want to do, no questions. And we are low hanging fruit in terms of sales so it's fair enough the campaign is not aimed us.

I just question a community that gets into a frenzy based on little detail...