by Cody Bye on Sep 17, 2008
Welcome to the 917th Edition of Loading...
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Daily Column
Loading... One less thing you have to worry about in the
morning.
It’s been a long few weeks. For many websites, the launch of
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/88"
target="_blank">Warhammer Online marks a
potentially powerful period of time where they can pull in thousands of
new fans or simply allow the release of perhaps the biggest post-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"
target="_blank">World of Warcraft MMOG to pass
them by. In typical Ten Ton Hammer fashion, we’ve been
working our butts off to make sure that you – our readers
– have everything and anything you’d ever need to
know about WAR. But that also means that many members of the Ten Ton
Hammer staff simply have too much to do and too little time to do it.
With that in mind, John “Boomjack” Hoskin passed
the task of Loading on to me (Cody “Micajah” Bye)
for this one day. He'll be back tomorrow and in fine Boomjack form.
Be kind Loading... faithful. I hope you don’t throw too many
tomatoes at me. I hate tomatoes.
Personally, some of you may not like tomatoes, but the folks at EA and
Mythic Entertainment are
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/44213" target="_blank">betting
that you’re going to like WAR. It’s been
reported that EA has shipped 1.5 million
style="font-style: italic;">Warhammer Online
boxes to retailers and that WAR was the most preordered PC title in
their 26-year history, apparently beating out their recently released
(and incredibly hyped) PC game, Spore.
If game publishing operates anything like book publishing, I can attest
that more preorders means more Warhammer
Online boxes will be hitting store shelves when companies
are making their decisions to order more games. In the eyes of major
retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy, preorders drive ordering
decisions, and they can’t deny a game that out orders any
other product distributed by one of the largest PC game publishers in
the world.
To be honest, I never doubted that Warhammer
Online would break records. Between the actual gameplay
and the incredibly entertaining and viral presentations by the WAR
developers, most people couldn’t help but pre-order the
title. Interested MMOG aficionados might drop by a message board and
see a link to
target="_blank">Josh and Paul in Leipzig, have a
few laughs, then really try to find out who those guys were. Then they
discover WAR, get sucked in, and preorder the game.
But was this marketing strategy planned by EA from the beginning? I
have no idea. Paul Barnett should know. Jeff Hickman probably has an
inkling. Maybe we’ll ask them. Would Justin Webb know?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=34863"
target="_blank">You asked him to publish his
records of Paul Barnett discussing underpants, girl’s
signatures and Nurgle trophies, and
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/44243" target="_blank">he
came up with his most recent blog. Perhaps we should ask him
about marketing strategies?
On top of his
target="_blank">Barnettisms, Justin Webb also took
the time to strap a video camera to his hand and
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/44217" target="_blank">document
WAR's Jeff Hickman in the final fifteen minutes before the launch of
Warhammer Online. You can almost feel the anxious excitement
in the video. A big thanks to Justin for giving us this brief look
inside a development studio!
And even with launch impending,
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/44213" target="_blank">Barnett
hasn’t stopped the rhetoric. That man just keeps on
trucking. In a recent interview, he discusses his projections for WAR.
Do you think WAR will hit three million? Will it have a million in a
year? Would you bet against Paul Barnett? Let us know on the
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=35192"
target="_blank">Loading… forums.
--
16 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 169 in September!
2373 in 2008!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today
[Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]
Images/Video
PerfectLaunch Blog!
target="_blank">[New!] Warhammer Online: Jeff Hickman atInterviews
PiratesGuides
WarhammerHot Content - Or, what I took a
fancy to
Real World News
href="http://wcco.com/consumer/3.ply.toilet.2.818258.html">New
Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.
- Cody "Micajah" Bye and the Ten Ton Hammer Team