Saving NWC

Feedback for the articles that appear on Celestial Heavens.
User avatar
{CH}ArticleBot
CH News Reporter
CH News Reporter
Posts: 1109
Joined: 14 Aug 2015

Saving NWC

Unread postby {CH}ArticleBot » 04 Jan 2005, 21:34

Image

Behind the
Curtain: Saving NWC

by Charles Watkins
This week, I’d like to take a
break from mapmaking to say a few words about the future of the Heroes
franchise. Sure, there has been a lot of talk (see the Heroes V Forum)
about what we’d like to see in Heroes V and plenty of speculation on the
status of New World Computing. However, there has been little discussion about
the continued viability of Heroes as a product, and this is where I would
like to weigh in.
I believe that the Heroes
franchise is in severe danger of extinction, not so much due to flaws in the
game but due to unimaginative marketing. When I say ‘marketing’ many people will
think I’m just talking about the matter of advertising and publicizing a
product–these are the parts that customers usually see–but there is far more to
it. Marketing involves understanding customers and what they care about. It
involves pricing, packaging, and distribution strategies. And above all, it
involves figuring out what to sell and how to make money. I think 3DO and (to a
lesser extent) NWC have failed in all three of these areas. And I think the
future of Heroes depends on NWC joining with a
company that appreciates the game and really understands how to market it.

Many of you know me as a gamer, but in ‘real life’ until I retired last year--young, I say--I was in
software marketing for the better part of 30 years. My experience is mainly with
operating systems, not games, but as a gamer I’ve had an abiding interest in
that segment of the industry and have been monitoring its evolution through
reporters like Angelspit at Celestial
Heavens. I’ve also been at 3DO stockholder for many years. So though I am not a veteran of the
games business, nor do I have any inside information about NWC, I do have some
insight into the situation. There have been times when I thought I might someday
move over to that side of the industry, but my impression is that most games
companies are pretty screwed up.
This is not a short discussion, so it’s broken into two
parts:
Part 1: Taking Stock – Can The Heroes Franchise Be Saved? Before looking at ways to return
Heroes to its former glory, we have to face the difficult question of whether it
deserves to live. Put another way, is there enough value in the franchise to
make it worthwhile to implement the changes needed for it to survive? And what
kind of a product plan would be needed to return Heroes to profitability?
Part 2: Making Money – What I Would Do For Heroes to succeed in
today’s market, it must find new customers and this calls for changes to the
game itself, not just an ad campaign. I think the key here is widening its
appeal by incorporating the best features of Might and Magic. At the same
time, the Heroes franchise needs to embrace the new realities
of the PC games market and look beyond retail sales for sources of profits. This
requires a Commercial Website, which I will outline.

Read full article...
CH First Mechanized Brigade - Newspapers Lieutenant
Submit Map | Maps | Walkthroughs | Downloads

Return to “Articles”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests