The Great Tree

[brian]

interesting...

http://www.mysturu.com
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#Brian Fioca
#KI: 11882331
#KI: 1504111 [disconnected]

[Durin Mephit]

Registrant:
DRC
Hut
Relto, NM 87544
US

Domain name: MYSTURU.COM

Administrative Contact:
Sharper, Douglas shroombaron@yahoo.com
Hut
Relto, NM 87544
US
+1.1234567890
Technical Contact:
Sharper, Douglas shroombaron@yahoo.com
Hut
Relto, NM 87544
US
+1.1234567890

---------------

At any rate, I believe that this moaning and crying about the supposed "renaming" of Uru to Myst Uru is belated. The damage was done with the original release of Uru. Did nobody look closely at the original box art?



The word "MYST" has been there before Uru all along. Admittedly, Ubi has changed the balance with the Path of the Shell and the Complete Chronicles artworks by making the text MYST larger than URU, but the sad truth is that MYST has preceded URU from the retail beginning.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[brian]

No, actually look at the preorder site:

http://store.ubi.com/item.jsp?item=008888682028&category=PC

It's clearly been renamed.
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#Brian Fioca
#KI: 11882331
#KI: 1504111 [disconnected]

[Jon]

I don't want to sound like a 'big corporation == teh evil' guy, but Ubi is really starting to annoy me with this. They refuse to advertise the game at all, and then they rely on the word 'Myst' to sell the game for them instead. Not only does it insult our intelligence; fans that buy it looking for the next Myst title will be disappointed by the different style of gameplay and graphics. The more Ubi uses the Myst name as advertising, the less faith people have in Cyan.
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The laws contrived by the Proud are their security, and their undoing. Such laws make disobedience a virtue and obedience a sin.

[Professor Askew]

Kha'tie responded to this issue over at UO.

[brian]

So why aren't they marketing it?
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#Brian Fioca
#KI: 11882331
#KI: 1504111 [disconnected]

[Professor Askew]

Hehe. Good question.
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Professor Daniel Askew - Securing our reality from the machinations of the Station Masters.

[CuzinJohn]

[Jon]

Well, the age old question is, of course, "What do you see?"

I see a company that isn't willing to invest more than base production in a truly great game. I see a truly great product that is, in all honesty, being set up for failure through a lack of exposure. I see Ubi trying to cut its losses already.

I'm very, very much afraid that Live's last chance isn't being given a fair chance...
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The laws contrived by the Proud are their security, and their undoing. Such laws make disobedience a virtue and obedience a sin.

[brian]

Not sure it was ever given a fair chance, IMHO.
_________________
#Brian Fioca
#KI: 11882331
#KI: 1504111 [disconnected]

[NSymon]

[David Domitri]

Wow, I just found this place. Pretty cool, if you ask me (I will probably be over here way more often than at UO). But on to the topic at hand:

Yes, I agree: Uru has never been given a fair chance. I see the MYST in the title as a cheap attempt to not market a very marketable product. Exile advertising was everywhere. As some of you have pointed out, Ubi is clearly capable of mass advertising (Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell), yet has held back on Uru for some reason. We shall see what they do with Revelation advertising, but if they promote it and not Uru or Path of the Shell... well, I am getting ahead of myself, and ahead of what has happened yet.

But indeed, marketing is not just the box design, and any excuse from a company large enough to pull off decent marketing (like Ubisoft) that the box (and name, it seems) is an "advertising" attempt is pretty unsatisfactory, if you ask me.

[Professor Askew]

Welcome to the Great Tree, David!!

We're more than happy to have you here. Yes, it's more of a concentrated Uru over here (no offense to anyone else intended). But, what would you expect from the "followers" of Douglas Sharper? He could be pretty intense himself.
_________________
Professor Daniel Askew - Securing our reality from the machinations of the Station Masters.

[Durin Mephit]

I'm sorry to be such a wet blanket...

(Audience cries out: Then don't be one!)

Yeah yeah. Anyway, I just don't see the worth in complaining over the brand naming for Path of the Shell, and I'm not known for holding back when I'm upset over something. I was one of the first people to compose a scathing Open Letter to Cyan and Rand Miller after the announcement of Live's demise, which I then paired with another letter several days later and mailed copies to both Cyan and Ubisoft.

I spent cold hard cash making sure that my concerns were received in paper and ink... it's about the best way to make people take notice, because internet forum postings and petitions are by-and-large ignored by most corporations and politicians. It takes very little effort to sign an internet petition, and only slightly more to write an e-mail or a forum post, but when you've printed your words out - or even better, put a pen to paper and forced your hand to scrawl as neatly as you can - and then added envelope, stamps, and the walk to somewhere you can mail it, that extra effort generally earns a bit of respect. Mind you, form letters will be ignored - you have to put down original content and mail a physical copy. Because people are so lazy that the required effort is rarely seen, companies tend to take notice when they get a measurable volume of physical mail.

But friends, I do not think that the complaints over the rebranding of Uru more prominently as a MYST game are worth the time. Here is why:

First, consider the "Sky is Falling" perception we must be creating. We have complained about Live, we have complained about Gigex, and now we are complaining about how they brand URU product. At some point, Ubi may just decide that we complain so much, that perhaps Chicken Little had a whole lot of offspring, and they've all logged onto the internet.

Second, I believe the complaints that MYST fans will be confused and dismayed by picking up URU with the increased MYST branding is a bogus argument. On the branding side: The MYST name already appeared on URU's original packaging. On the side of the box is the familliar silhouette of Atrus falling into the starry cleft from Riven. In Europe, the game has widely become known already as MYST 4 due to confusion in the gaming press there. On the "different from MYST experience" side: Among the many complaints I made in my Open Letter, URU's interface and the jumping puzzles were a bullet point of their own because of the way they alienated long-time MYST fans (and yes, this was a Cyan boo-boo, not Ubi's fault!). I firmly believe that the majority of damage to the MYST franchise has already been done. I find the increased size of the MYST font to be rather amusing really, as I don't believe it will draw in any new customers. I sort of hope to be proven wrong on this point, but despite the anemic advertising, I really do think that URU has already hit most of the MYST fan base that is going to purchase it. Ubi thinks otherwise, or else they wouldn't have made the logo change... so we shall see in time who is right.

Third and finally, I agree with the complaints that the enlarging of the MYST title suggests that Ubi isn't planning on putting sufficient effort into marketing the game. But you know, that really shouldn't come as any surprise, given that they put almost all of their URU promotion on the SciFi channel in the USA, and badly neglected all other mediums and venues. Ubi's deplorable marketing of the original Uru release was another of the many points raised in my original Open Letter. We've pointed out their mistake already, and they ignored us; why would anyone think that hammering Ubi with the same advice again will make any difference?

Now let me tell you what I think we should be doing instead.

Negative treatment of the URU franchise and Ubi's handling of it has only hurt our cause thus far. Yet another point leftover from my old letter - many people told their friends, "Wait until Live is out of beta before signing up. It's too buggy right now." We didn't know we were helping dig Live's grave every time we shared that advice with another person.

Instead of complaining to Ubi's deaf ears, and spending our time signing further petitions to which Ubi will turn a blind eye, let's focus on positive acts (such as helping advertise Uru ourselves, as suggested in the 'A new cause?' thread).

Here's a rough start:

* Promote URU.
* Counteract misinformation and confusion caused by Ubi's branding
* Continue to spread positive word of the online communities formed from Live's brief existence

I do not want people to eschew purchasing URU products when they see them on the shelf at their store. I do not want potential URU customers to think "Oh, there's that game that all those people are complaining about online." Our trivial bickering could cause some people who skim for quick reviews of games to leave the product on the shelves because the impression they received in this age of short attention spans was, "people didn't like it."

Do you want to run that risk?
_________________
Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

[Professor Askew]

Well, as I've mentioned at a couple of places, I plan on doing what I can to promote Uru. This starts with buying more than one copy. In this case I'm referring to Complete Chronicles because most everyone who's gotten this far in the game will probably already be buying PotS.

Now, I certainly don't think everyone should run out and pay twice as much as they have to just to keep a game alive...and of course not everyone can afford to. But, in my case, I can think of two or three people who would really enjoy this game........if they played computer games. So, I'm going to introduce them to the wonderful world of Uru via the Complete Chronicles. Imagine if everyone who bought PotS or CC bought another CC. Why.....that'd be twice as many sales! Surely that could only help.

The second thing I did was post a positive review of CC at ebGames. And when I went back there a couple of weeks later, mine was still the only review. I would think a flood of positive reviews might have an impact on sales. People around the world can pre-order there. We have well over a hundred members here and if each one posted a positive review...well.....I'd say that's saying something.
_________________
Professor Daniel Askew - Securing our reality from the machinations of the Station Masters.