You know why there was no marketing for RB3?

[Alternity]

Remember: People saw the big legacy DLC sale as some kind of evidence that HMX or Rock Band was in some kind of trouble. Everybody sees things as they want to see them and they all have the truth that can fix what isn't broken. If only we'd all see it and agree.

Well, talking of broken, you are probably not a PS3 player, because this game is hella broken on PS3, and some people stopped to buy DLC because of that. The stats on RBS.com are pretty accurate and I consider using the song that is mostly played on each console is the best way instead of choosing one song for all 3, since we wanna know how many people played the game, and not how many people played a certain song. Also, I'm pretty sure they made the DLC sale for Blitz and to sell more pre-rb3 DLC, as people who has turned into pro players don't buy songs without a pro part (it's my case). I'm pretty sure the number of pre-rb3 sold DLC was kinda low and they decided to make a huge sale for their 5 years anniversary. (5 years? I'm not even sure). I didn't notice ANY marketing for RB3 at all, except the E3 videos on youtube, and I don't really call that marketing. Maybe in the USA there were some RB3 commercials, but I haven't seem any here, and a few months after RB3 came out, it was kinda difficult to find a copy locally.

[mikeyts]

I posted a few threads with some tables of stats that I derived from the data in the leaderboards on this site (last time I did it was a year ago) and Wii band profiles with scores on the leaderboards were consistently 12% of the total as the number of profiles posting to the board grew.

[Alternity]

The band scores doesn't update anymore on rockbandstats so we can't use that.

[mikeyts]

The top players band scores on the leaderboards on this site do get updated and Wii players are currently 11.75% of the total (150300 out of 1278200).

[Santa Claustrophobia]

Well, talking of broken, you are probably not a PS3 player, because this game is hella broken on PS3, and some people stopped to buy DLC because of that. The stats on RBS.com are pretty accurate and I consider using the song that is mostly played on each console is the best way instead of choosing one song for all 3, since we wanna know how many people played the game, and not how many people played a certain song. Also, I'm pretty sure they made the DLC sale for Blitz and to sell more pre-rb3 DLC, as people who has turned into pro players don't buy songs without a pro part (it's my case). I'm pretty sure the number of pre-rb3 sold DLC was kinda low and they decided to make a huge sale for their 5 years anniversary. (5 years? I'm not even sure). I didn't notice ANY marketing for RB3 at all, except the E3 videos on youtube, and I don't really call that marketing. Maybe in the USA there were some RB3 commercials, but I haven't seem any here, and a few months after RB3 came out, it was kinda difficult to find a copy locally.

One, it's immeterial why some PS3 users stopped buying DLC. Anybody who used the buggy status of the PS3 as a reason to stop buying was probably just looking for an excuse anyway. Plenty of people on the PS3 still play and still buy. People stopped buying DLC because HMX won't release more Pro upgrades, or Keys songs, or their favourite genre/band.

It has nothing to do with anything.

Two, any statistical analysis class will tell you that you cannot use three different sources if incomparable numbers to prove an overall trend. Especially since there are a number of reasons that can explain why. For example:

Bohemian Rhapsody
319,700 - Xbox
171,800 - PS3
44,700 - Wii

Low Rider
293,600 - Xbox
160,900 - PS3
38,500 - Wii

I Love Rock n Roll
348,300 - Xbox
188,600 - PS3
55,200 - Wii

So what do we see as a pattern? Well, primarily that the easier songs get played the most (practically confirming the idea that most people play on the easier difficulties anyway). But that the overall break down is that the Xbox has twice as many players as the PS3 which has three to four times the number of players on the Wii.

Okay, different than my initial point. Now let's look at one of the most popular piece of DLC.

Don't Stop Believing
87,100 - Xbox
44,100 - PS3
8,200 - Wii

This is more like the Xbox has twice as many as the PS3 which is five times the number of the Wii. (And now that I think about it, that should've been the ratio I put forward earlier.)

Why use on-disc songs and popular DLC? Because the only way to obtain the numbers is via anybody who bothered to play online. And that if you can get online, you are more motivated to purchase DLC.

So overall, the ratio holds true. And there is no confirmed evidence that any console audience purchased a significant number of copies and didn't play online at least once. Any argument that this is the cause (Usually that somehow there is a massive, untapped Wii audience who would totally buy DLC if only...something. When it simply must be true that if the don't bother to go online, then they probably don't 'exist'. The numbers we have are more representative of the truth than many want to believe.)

Oh, and when using online scores? Pick Band instead of a single instrument. The way RB3 tracks scores, the band list will include everybody who only plays a single instrument instead of all five. (The reasoning has been gone over in greater detail elsewhere and is simply way to off-topic for this as it is.)

Just for context, full band ILRnR scores:
546,000 - Xbox
221,000 - PS3
100,500 - Wii

(And all that probably means is that ILRnR blows the ratio because it is easier. Llama only has 23,100 band scores on the Wii. Context is key which is why you have to use all the scores and not just the most individual scores.)

And the reason why you want to use rockband.com instead of an outside stat tracking site is because rockband.com gets the scores first. All tracking sites get the scores directly from here but at different rates. It simply cannot be possible for anybody who is not rockband.com can have the most accurate overall stats available. (But that's also a different argument.)

Ahem.

Three, Blitz can certainly be considered a factor in the reason for the big sale. Especially since Blitz doesn't care about Pro upgrades. However, since you're a Pro only player, you are in the smallest minority of Rock Band players that can possibly exist. Roughly only 5% of the total audience plays Pro guitar.

However, Pro drums is not affected at all since all legacy HMX DLC is compatible with Pro drums. Using your personal game playing habit as a basis to extrapolate to the audience at large is also part of flawed statistical analysis. Old legacy DLC wasn't selling because, by this point, most people already had all the old songs they wanted. And newer players probably encounter choice paralysis when the see all that previous content and chose instead to just ignore it. (But that's also to far afield for this particular topic.

Whatever the reason HMX decided to discount the older DLC, it still led many here to go Chicken Little on the boards and lament the future of Rock Band, HMX, and cute and fluffy bunnies. There are any number of probably and likely reasons for the discounted prices. None of them are because HMX is in trouble.

Four, I presume you're in Europe or at least not in the US. Frankly, Rock Band has stumbled mightily in Europe from the very beginning. The only other region more screwed is Australia. That you might not have seen advertisements for RB3 isn't much of a surprise.

But it still doesn't mean there was no marketing. Selection bias is more the reason why you or the OP might think there was no marketing. That you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't exist. I personally didn't see any myself, but I didn't have cable TV so I didn't see any commercials. But that doesn't prove there weren't any.



Whew.


A personal experience is an anecdote. And anecdotal evidence is not proof of a wider phenomenon. It may be confirmed later, but it is not proof by itself.

All I'm trying to do is provide a reminder of that. So, yeah.

[Bront20]

Old business mantra: When times are good,you should advertise. When times are bad, you MUST advertise. The new direction of Blitz should be advertised to bring in new users and hopefully have these people gravitate over to your main business. Think Lattes at McDonalds. So far. the highest selling song on Blitz sold 14k.[RBScores] Not very good. The average is about 10k. At .60 per song, I don't believe they made much profit. They decided to remove 25% of their potential customer base{Wiiers}. Maybe I don't know the reasoning for their strategy, but businesswise it doesn't seem to be a 'normal' marketing blueprint. I do hope RB lives on for years to come

1) I know people who own Blitz and don't own RB3 (or haven't played the Blitz songs in RB3

2) Since the Blitz songs outside of the Wii came as a pack, "sold" isn't the proper word, and you have no idea how many folks played 1 song and not another.

3) Rockbandscores.com has never been 100% reliable regarding sales, and in fact HMX has said so. I'd trust them, as they have more data than I do. It's useful for general trends but that's about it.

4) The Wii is hardly 25% of the user base as far as DLC is concerned, which is what Blitz was. Beyond that, it may have been far beyond HMX's control to support the Wii. The biggest hurdle being the controls. Outside of using the pro-classic controller, I don't know how you would map the Wii controls to that game.

5) Blitz's other goal was to spark DLC sales, and it seems to have done the trick just looking at the bump in RB3 scores in the aforementioned RBScores site (a lot of DLC took a jump up in new plays) and it stired renewed interest in RB3. Again, I know friends who never got RB3 till after Blitz (they wanted to export RB2).

6) I like numbers.

[Alternity]

Four, I presume you're in Europe or at least not in the US. Frankly, Rock Band has stumbled mightily in Europe from the very beginning. The only other region more screwed is Australia. That you might not have seen advertisements for RB3 isn't much of a surprise.

Just for the record, I live at about 30mins from the US by car, in Montréal. I would've believe that if there was some marketing plan, we would've at least saw it somewhere in a gaming store or something. All I saw was a shelf with a good ammount of RB3 copies on the launch day, then when they sold out, well.. they sold out and didn't got other brand new copies, anyways, in the stores I've been to. It's not like I'm in Europe or in Australia, I'm right besides US.

That's funny, people tend to forget that Québec is mainly a french province. Everytime someone knows I speak french they think I'm from France/europe. (Assuming you've read my other posts in this thread that mentionned french TV channels, I also mentionned having access to US channels and English CAN channels )

[Santa Claustrophobia]

I know where Quebec is. Today is the first day I've ever seen your name on a post. My guess was based on three things: One, that you said you didn't see any Rock Band advertisement. Two, that you are on the PS3 (which has a higher percentage of RB players compared to the Xbox in EU). And three, your English syntax is awkward.

No matter where you are, your personal experience with Rock Band advertising is not actual proof of a wider experience. There are even a number of factors that can possibly explain why you, somebody with a particular interest in Rock Band, may not have seen much. Among which the simplest explanation is that the ads that did exist were in places that were not aimed at you. Another is that for whatever reason you never noticed RB advertising and then assumed that because you didn't, that meant it didn't exist. That's selection bias.

Or maybe the ad campaign didn't bother with Canada. It happens.

[Alternity]

Or maybe the ad campaign didn't bother with Canada. It happens.

My guess is that, because I see advertising of other games all the time on TV, in subway stations, in the bus, even at McDonald's. If HMX really wanted to advertise RB3, they probably would've done the same.

[GRRRUMBLE]

Most of the attrition was among the partiers and role-players. The role-player was always a minority, but now I seem to be the only remaining representative still highly active on these forums.

I never saw a pro guitar outside of the box. When guitarists finally take notice my scoring will be meaningless. They might have taken notice if it was displayed correctly.
The competitor game was set up in guitar center stores with a large screen tv available for trial.
I must have seen something because I didn't own a system or tv prior to rock band 3 .
As for the quote , really I'd have been okay with a non scoring version of what I have in rock band 3 .