UO Second Age

Dear everyone,

We, as I am speaking also for Derrick, are going to try to give a boost to the population of the shard.
As of today, I have to be honest, the financial monthly balance of the shard is in the light red.
Per month, donations are reaching average amount of 150$
- Servers costs & hosting cost about three times the donation costs
- Advertising budget is currently about 10$ / month (basically, nothing)

We all agree on the fact that the point of this shard is to have a free shard, volunteered staff and overall a nonprofit project.
But, as I see the current situation, we could doing some very specific marketing, very well targeted, and on the purpose of bringing in more players rapidly.
So you know, there are about 700+ different IP addresses logging per day on the shard, that’s about 600-650 distinct players I guess assuming the ones logging from work (and I am part of them ). If everyone gives 1$, we multiply by 4 the current donation. I think that enjoying UO all day long for a whole month, worth at least 1$...

What we would like to test, is a marketing operation, a onetime shot, to test and see the results. October donations would have to be higher than usual thanks to all of us.
The monthly 150$ will still be used to cover the fees, and any $ on top of that will be spent on November marketing campaign.
I am currently targeting which channels should be used to maximize the benefits of those donations. First priority should be UO fan groups on facebook, easy to target, cheap cost as no one targets them, and mass community effects.

For the moment, I started a Facebook campaign paying by myself. Here are the first results.
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/1434/adcampaign.jpg
Here is the ad I made:
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/5469/84434157.jpg
Flames in this thread will be heavily sanctioned by staff.
Bigoud

Do we by any chance run google ads?

A couple things... First, I'd suggest putting "1999" in the Facebook ad somewhere.

Second, I'd highly suggest running Google AdSense ads. And heck, maybe even search ads. I can't set up an account, but if you do, I can pop in and help optimize it. I am pretty good at this

Third... let's help out folks... there's no reason Derrick & co. should be doing a crapload of work for free AND paying $300/month to do so.

Just as a suggestion, since you are now advertising, I would discuss this with an attorney. You could be crossing a line in which EA merely needs to spend a little bit of money to cause you guys a lot of grief...la

TheScoundrelRico wrote:Just as a suggestion, since you are now advertising, I would discuss this with an attorney. You could be crossing a line in which EA merely needs to spend a little bit of money to cause you guys a lot of grief...la

What profit is UO Second Age making off their product?

None, perfectly legal.

RunUO(what uosa uses) is not a licensed software of EA. The server is not designated to EA. The website is not a part of EA. The client software that players use is not a part of UOSA and they are free to do what they want with that software. However, any EULA players break is their own doing when it comes to EA servers but UOSA does not force this upon anyone.

Advertising the use of your server to utilize software that is free has no legality issues. The same goes for donations/purchases with a server and their willing participants to such a cause.

Futhermore, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed after the release of Ultima Online making the packet encryption bypass legal unlike with other games such as WoW.

@Bigoud

I am a website developer and I have found that facebook campagins are pretty useless. I wasted nearly $500 in advertising there with little results, most were probably accidental clicks.

I think you should advertise on a website called reddit.com. They have a self-advertising section that I would frequently used. I spent around $800 there and am happy with the results.

The cool thing is you can also comment on your ad, so we can talk about the shard directly there in the campaign. Plus you can do a targeted ad, and advertise directly to the gamers community subforum there.

PS. I might start a reddit ad later this month if I end up sticking around. But it looks like I will stick around

Checkmate is right on the nose, banner ads and network campaigns never do anything. Content advertising is the best way- or as a few have mentioned before- optimizing search engines might be a good idea.

Personal referrals work great too. Everyone that played UO must have a significant amount of contacts or friends who also played with them, simply sending a mass email to those you know who used to "UO" informing them that an amazing fun shard is now available for free could spark interest. My brother and I have been telling old friends and guildmates from long long ago about UOSA, and a couple play now.

122k impressions yielded 52 clicks only? That's rather sad. I tend to think AdSense is pretty useless too. What we need is to advertise on relevant mmog forums like Massively I think.

I know a few people that have been pushing for massively to do a piece on this server for some time.

If you get a chance throw in a nice suggestion to massively to give UOSA a story.

Massively Comments

someone with persuasive copywriting skills please show up

checkmate wrote:@Bigoud

I am a website developer and I have found that facebook campagins are pretty useless. I wasted nearly $500 in advertising there with little results, most were probably accidental clicks.

I think you should advertise on a website called reddit.com. They have a self-advertising section that I would frequently used. I spent around $800 there and am happy with the results.

The cool thing is you can also comment on your ad, so we can talk about the shard directly there in the campaign. Plus you can do a targeted ad, and advertise directly to the gamers community subforum there.

PS. I might start a reddit ad later this month if I end up sticking around. But it looks like I will stick around

Good advice. Id focus on 4chan, reddit, SA etc like communities (and not necessarily adverts!) When our shard made 4chan, it netted this: http://my.uosecondage.com/Status/Guild/1402

Mys wrote:I know a few people that have been pushing for massively to do a piece on this server for some time.

If you get a chance throw in a nice suggestion to massively to give UOSA a story.

Massively Comments

Good idea. I submitted a comment.

On a related note, has Derrick considered sending out a mass e-mail news letter? I know one was done awhile back but I don't think anything of the sort has been done recently.

The reason I bring it up is people get bored easily and simple things like a gentle reminder of the game can bring a lot of players back into the game. I hadn't thought of UO for years and something made me remember it and I was bored so I started researching and ended up here. Now I play fairly regularly and I am teaching my wife the game as well.

Even a very quick "Hey, we are still here. Here are some of the recent improvements we've made. Your account is still active and we hope to see you on" will probably net some players. Sending one of those out every 3 months or so would be beneficial IMO.

I know the ad has to be small and to the point but for someone looking at that ad that has never played UO, they wouldnt know what any of that means. The ad is great for vet players but lacks any advertising to lure in new UO players. I would also use "Ultima Online" in there somewhere instead of using the common "UO" in the ad.

I think youtube videos are a great way of advertising games. Someone should make an official UOSA channel and start posting videos periodically. There arent many video resources when it comes to UO.