Anyone notice the lack of media for GW?

I have been looking into the different mag's and online sources and I find it somewhat unsettling that with about two weeks to go (as of this post) there is a significant lack of media for the game. Now someone please inform me why that would be, if I have completely missed the picture.

Usually these typical computer gaming magazines give plenty of previews in advance. Why is it that GW has missed out? Is there some animosity out there against ArenaNet jumping off the good-ship-blizzard? Do they lack the funds for advertising? So many questions and no answers.

For myself I thought GW may end up similar to the Star Wars phenomenon when it first hit theaters in '77. I should know I was there. It went from an unknown to a blockbuster in a short time. Perhaps we will see that with GW. Maybe we can hope anyway.

Right now they're more or less relying on word of mouth which is actually the most powerful form of advertising...and it's free.

EDIT: Think about it this way...they had 400,000 people sign up for the WPE in October. Pretty impressive considering the "lack" of advertising.

I remember when NCSoft released CoH there was a massive blitz two weeks leading up. I think we are going to see the same here.

I don't know, I think they've done more than enough advertising so far. Preorder with a fancy box, community sites and references by the hundreds. The only thing that could top it off is a fancy T.V. commercial. You have to remember that this is also for all speculation purposes a MMORPG, and if its a good one (which we all know it is)... then it will become more popular. There are two ways a game becomes BIG... the Big Bang (advertising before hand which doesn't guarantee the quality of the game B4ME and DOOM III) come to mind... and those that have great gameplay (little marketing) and grow steadily (like Total Annihilation, C&C, Battlefield 1942, Warcraft). These are the power hitters and will be topping all time favorite lists, they also usually come from small companies (like ArenaNet) who are just starting in the gaming industry.

Lansing Kai Don

You've already got 250,000 rabid fans waiting to buy and tell all their friends about you. Why pay all the magazines to write reviews?

I'm sure we'll see some more advertising, but even if they don't, I believe you'll see a packed Tyria on release day.

pc gaming
computer gaming
EVEN
pc magazine

all have articles and page spreads on it

just to mention3 of them i have personally seen

One consideration might be that magazines have a tendency to be scheduled, laid out and ready for print months in advance. Since most game companies aren't on time, even arena.net had a delay, they might have figured it wouldn't be ready. Also the other guy, the more famous diablo programmer has a game he announced this month, me thinks it was on purpose.

www.flagshipstudios.com is the link to their site.

I tend to believe this is the guy that got the credit but isn't that guy that did all the work. The reason is the small staff at Arena.net . Note there are alot of talented people but the one that caught my eye was Patrick Wyatt, a former Vice President of Research and Development from Blizzard, a Vivendi-Universal pictures company. Not hard to see how much Mr. Wyatt gave up for Arena.net, and IMHO I think he is probably one of the more unconventional geniuses as that is what you have to do to be a VP of R&D.

*Edit* I noted some other people in their team here.

NCsoft tends to do things a bit differently than most of the other mmo companies out there.
Take Lineage II for example. They had barely any advertising in the U.S.
I think they were relying more on the Lineage I players in Korea moving over, and word of mouth.

Well this is all certainly comforting, and I agree that the beta's have seen a large degree of success. I made the comment after wandering into Chapters the other day and looked at every gaming magazine for evidence of GW and found none. I proceded to look around the net a bit and found nothing (other than fansites).

That's a relief.

The more money they save on promotions will help them in the long run, as long as sales are strong. I'm sure they will be. I can barely sleep waiting to play thie weekend!

I can't walk into an EBGames anymore without noticing the huge display of 2 foot tall Guild Wars boxes.

There's some pretty blatant advertising, but I'll admit that's really all I've seen.

I agree that there is not much advertising. I myself just found out about the game this past weekend at a 30 hour Age of mythology lan party.I found out about it because i overheard my friend saying that it would be a mmorpg without any subscription fees. This was all i needed for me to go check it out online and a few days later i rushed to eb games as an informed buyer to get the preorder.

I think there should like be atleast one commercial with one of those videos online. probly the cinematic trailer that can be found here
If that happened i bet that sales would jump.

I just was there to pick up my preorder and found no displays or posters showing Guild wars. This may be due to us going to different eb game stores.

The newest PC Gamer (U.S) has a Guild Wars back cover ad featuring the necro girl and I'm sure other magazines released around the same time all have similar ad's. I have also seen the gigantic boxes around a nearby Gamestop. It seems to me that the game is getting quite a bit of attention in places where mainly only gamers would notice it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that since most people who are interested in this game are possibly..uh.. gamers.

Could it be possible that the release box will be that big for no reason?

Just recieved my May issue of Computer Gaming World, and it too has a Guild Wars advertisement on the back cover.

I remember that Gamespy used to feature GW and then they seemed to drop off the face of the planet, as far as talking about the game. Perhaps they grew tired of waiting.

I agree word of mouth is an effective tool, but advertising has its niche, and getting coverage in magazines within one month of release seems rather foolish. Surely they could have done more in advance, so catch more people who were out of the word-of-mouth range. Especially if they are going to draw revenue out of the sales of games and not monthly fee.

I'm sure I've seen the trailer on TechTV(G4TechTV now.) Also they've shown gameplay for it from one of the BWE's on one of their gaming shows.

I found out about Guild Wars from an article in PC Gamer about the E3 event. They have had a couple of short articles on it and there has been advertising in PC Gamer for about 6 months. If not on the back cover, 2 page spreads. I don`t think there is anything to worry about.

I think that because the game requires NO monthly fee that the marketing strategy greatly differs from other mmorpgs.

mmorpg's need to do a massive blitz because they want large community’s right off the bat. Plus most mmo's die off quickly because of bugs and glitches... Most company’s try to get as many people to buy the game then purchase the membership early, before they all figure out the game sucks and move onto something else.

Guild Wars is different in the aspect that they will not have to worry as much as other mmorpgs in regards to customer retention. Even if you get bored with it, you can take off two months and then come back without having to purchase a monthly membership.

P.S. If anyone is interested in some GW media I have posted a few movies at this link CLICK HERE

Besides online articles, and a few magazine articles that have been mentioned above, the only other advertising I have seen for Guild Wars was today on Cinemetech on G4tv.

Im waiting to see a review for it on G4 somewhere. They usually don't review online oonly games, though. GW will turn out fine, even if there is a lack of advertisement. Just like Inde said, your ganna see a rush of players when the game is released fully.