It's kind of concerning/alarming that the PC Community will be joining in less than a month but there's been little hype generated about it by teh PSO website or offering any services to newer players.

This seems like the perfect hype time for the development team to really push some content that encourages people to check out the game, show them important pieces of how the game works, and get people excited.

I feel like I'm doing my damnest to generate interest in my communities and among my friends but the only content worth sharing to them are third party streamers doing all the work, and often it's not very concise.

Is there an advertising campaign working on this at PSO2? Will there be a bigger presence throughout the month of May? None of the blogs or news announcements or PR even mentions the PC release. Unless you follow other publications on the media-only press release, you have no idea that it's even coming out.

I really hope PSO2 will focus its resources on making this a big deal, because dropping teh ball now could be disastrous for the long term. If you don't develop a solid core base at launch, friends are less likely to join.

Actually I agree with this! Since the closed beta on the xbox a lot of.. all of my friends that I started with have stopped.. though one had to stop due to medical issues out of her control, but everyone else just doesn't seem interested anymore.. Not sure if we need my friend who was super excited to come back to bring our team room back to life or what..

But outside of that I have other friends who have been waiting on the PC release and talk it up all the time in their streams and everything. They're excited to come back but instead of reading up on news on their own, they always come and ask me if there's anything new happening. I'm hoping that the start of May will begin some kind of advertising of the PC release or .. something at least. They got all of the rest of us happy and excited for jumping into our ships, so surely they'll start doing the same for the other half of their soon to be player base..

I'm reminded of EverQuest II, which had the potential to become as big as World of Warcraft, if they had just spent a little more on advertising/etc. Sure, they had one commercial, but that wasn't enough. Nor was advertising in non-gaming stores like Wal-mart, etc.

They're probably contractually obliged to keep silent about PC version due to some kind of shady backroom deal with Microsoft except for that one release announcement tweet.

@Havox3 said in PSO2 Team: Please Advertise/Hype More for PC Release:

They're probably contractually obliged to keep silent about PC version due to some kind of shady backroom deal with Microsoft except for that one release announcement tweet.

HAHAHA I love this.

Microsoft has a deal with Microsoft, so Microsoft can't release information on its Microsoft OS because of the Microsoft gaming console, so Microsoft signed a non-disclosure agreement with Microsoft so Microsoft couldn't allow Microsoft to talk about Microsoft making a Microsoft game cross-compatible with a Microsoft game. Thank you for the laughs.
I love everything about this.

@RobAtTheWiire said in PSO2 Team: Please Advertise/Hype More for PC Release:

Thank you for the laughs.

Nexon KR and Nexon USA are completely different companies (in a sense.) Nexon KR actually dislikes Nexon USA, a lot.

@RobAtTheWiire I mean... PSO2 NA is still technically being handled by Sega. Microsoft only really provides the server infrastructure the same way that a web host provides a server for websites as well as paying Sega for the game to happen and be released on Xbox One.

So yes it is entirely possible for SEGA, who are ya know... running the game themselves and the ones in direct contact with the Community Team, to be contractually obligated to not bring up the PC version.

Now whether thats actually the case I dunno... to me it just seems like Sega's usual "we'll do it when we get there" situation kinda like how we didn't get any new info after E3 till a few months before Closed Beta or how the dates for Closed and Open Beta were only released a week prior to it when people have been asking for it for months. I believe the same may happen in this case... we won't know about the PC version until a week prior to it releasing.

That's true, but still, it makes no sense.

Microsoft wants Sega to make money. Sega wants Sega to make money. Nexon wants Sega to make money.

I think @Leonkh99 has the right of it. Sega has a very long history of not putting out promotion materials, and hasn't pushed themselves since the early 90s. Dreamcast was still my favorite console of all time and I can't remember any advertising in my region for it. And if the Xbox One version was under the radar, imagine the PC one.

I'm not saying this to be mean, I want Sega to succeed. We all do. But damn gurl, get some stuff up on your social media.

It's been 3 weeks since I posted this. Not one official mentioning of the PC version anywhere. Just a press release a month ago with one sentence.

We've got this week and next for May.

Has anyone heard anything about this in the past month?

Friendly reminder we are in a pandemic crisis and they ARE affected.

@RobAtTheWiire said in PSO2 Team: Please Advertise/Hype More for PC Release:

It's been 3 weeks since I posted this. Not one official mentioning of the PC version anywhere. Just a press release a month ago with one sentence.

We've got this week and next for May.

Has anyone heard anything about this in the past month?

A couple days ago and other posts I have found posted throughout May:

• https://twitter.com/play_pso2/status/1260737990822772737
• https://twitter.com/play_pso2/status/1260748935582253057
• https://twitter.com/play_pso2/status/1260676110460678144
• https://twitter.com/play_pso2/status/1260328847972528129
• https://twitter.com/play_pso2/status/1260257689403142144
• https://twitter.com/play_pso2/status/1258589461681594368

Yes please advertise more.

@Ciel said in PSO2 Team: Please Advertise/Hype More for PC Release:

People either don't know or forget that years ago Sega IP blocked anything coming from outside of Japan (may have been all of Asia) for a long while before lifting the block (I am guessing because a lot of players used VPNs to get around the block). When the SEA version released, it was fully translated, but it too had a hard IP Block on anything coming from the West.

Every online Phantasy Star has been behind the Japanese version by at least 6 months, to the point that we often never got everything the Japanese version got. Sega JP has always catered to their Japanese playerbase with Sega NA being an afterthought, and that seems to still be a thing. I think it might be a culture issue, maybe some xenophobia bleeding into their business decisions.

The IP block for westerners took place in 2014. 2015 saw the SEA block.

Not sure why anyone was expecting anything to have changed. Microsoft is to thank for the West getting this at all. I doubt Sega did anything until they were approached, and only after their board came to the conclusion this would be a nice way to make some quick money.

Don't be surprised if two years from now the game gets shut down. The game is already pretty old and a sequel of some sorts might be in the works... but for Japan only.

The point of all of this is that I'm not really surprised Sega is dragging its feet and doing a lousy job promoting the game. They were reluctant to release the game, reluctant to let foreigners play their game, and are reluctant to put effort into the game now that it is finally here (probably because of their past behavior, age of the game, and Phantasy Star Universe being a flop).

So yes please advertise more. I just don't expect you will.

One thing to note is that everything we are getting now is from SEGA of Japan, not SEGA NA. Also, about the IP block on JP years ago, that was not a malicious act to keep foreigners out. It was put in place because of a DDoS attack on their servers, so they limited traffic to JP IP Addresses only. They later removed the ban since the attacks finished and were going to leave it open unless it happened again, which it thankfully hasn't for those that do play JP.

The game is also doing fine right now. As long as people continue to play and support it, it will last for quite a while yet. If NA supports it properly, there is a high chance that the next game will be global from the start.

@Ragnawind I see. Thanks for the info :3

@Ragnawind said in PSO2 Team: Please Advertise/Hype More for PC Release:

Also, about the IP block on JP years ago, that was not a malicious act to keep foreigners out. It was put in place because of a DDoS attack on their servers, so they limited traffic to JP IP Addresses only.

Oh, that would be actually interesting idea to bring people over to this server, just block them on JP server. It would be pretty bad if we talk about PR, but it would bring some people here for sure :D.