Why does Daybreak games do so little on promotion for the game or its expansions?

It seems like they could be doing more to promote and expand the player base. For example, World of Warcraft has released more information on a single page the the entirety of the expansion release information for ToL. They have individual pages for the different zones. From what I can see previous expansion release information is limited to a single spot on the webpage. I think I received at most one email about ToL before it went on sale. It seems like a large disservice to the community to not promote the game more. The Twitter account isn't very active either.

World of Warcraft has millions of users and a larger team?

Why bother?

Perhaps they feel the time and employee cost it would take is not worth the return

WoW could lose more players in a week than EverQuest's entire subscriber base and not even notice. Blizzard is a juggernaut of a game company, worth around $22BN. Daybreak, in contrast, is valued at around $300M. The sheer size and amount of resources available to Blizzard dwarfs what is available to Daybreak.

Promoting EverQuest does happen, but it's generally through email and at a much smaller scale. Running social media accounts is a cost I doubt Daybreak can afford, and I have doubt about whether anyone who might see the ad is considering playing this game. I would wager most "new" players are simply returning to EQ out of nostalgia. Actual new players are few and far between. Those people I have tried to introduce to EQ find the UI clunky, the difficulty high, and lack of in-game helpers a huge turn-off.

In short, promoting the game doesn't pay off.

I have witnessed targeted advertisements in the past on such social media platforms as Instagram.

I think players prefer the trade-off of a less aggressive marketing campaign than price increases to pay for marketing.

However, they could ride the House of the Dragon/Rings of Power bump with a slight increase in ads, events, and promotions.

EQ is a cult status game mainly focused at existing players. More nostalgia than anything really which is why Progression Servers are a thing. Advertising is expensive and there has to be an acceptable ROI. Bringing in more customers also increases overhead demands across the board., so don't do advertising unless there is a willingness to invest in infrastructure and people to assure a quality experience level is sustainable. Players already complain about lag, bugs, lack of content etc. You think bringing more customers is going to be the solution for that? Financing/VA would need to be brought on board to address those issues first...and whoever is going to pitch that better be a sales genius with an iron clad plan.

The game's engine is an antique and the demographics that are considered the prime target for suckers to be parted with their money (Millennials and Gen Z) may not have the patience for EQ. Ultimately this game is profitable doing exactly what they are doing now. Their business model must be working or the game would be shut down.

Because given the choice of playing a brand new, shiny toy with all the newest bells and whistles and features... or a 23 year old toy that is perceived as broken down and extremely difficult to play...

Most people go with the new. The focus really should be on retention of players, not adding to.

Because if there was a serious influx of actual, "new" players, they might have to do more work beyond just cut and paste from expansion to expansion to retain those players.

Simply doing the bare minimum to just hold on to long time existing customers seems to be the only thing they care about.

I would suspect, that if EQ gets brought into up to date operation (or nearly so) and maybe releasing a new planet to set the stage for 10 years of expansions, then we could see some hoopla to attract returnees and new players. Otherwise it will just be us older folk.

Why would a new player be attracted to a 23+ year old game that has a player base complaining about all the problems in the game? Sure it would be nice to attract more new players but with the amount of fixes needed would be easier making a new game.

EQ could hire a small marketing form to do email dripping marketing to all previous players email address, do 3 emails over a quarter to encourage people coming back. This is mostly automated and would cost less than 10K.

This is about desire, not cost. The firm has decided it is not valuable. Leadership needs to be shaken up

Heck I many users here could write the srcipt to send out the emails - 10 mins of data mining, 20 to scheduled out email blasts, 2 hours to write content for email... this is not super complicated or costly

All of their new content is made specifically for the existing customers already at max level. There is zero incentive to actually buy any expansion for virtually anyone that is interested in trying this game. The hill to climb before value is finally added is quite steep.

They made a group centric game that has no groups until the current expansion. Honestly, there is nothing to advertise. What would they say?

"Please try Everquest, where you can have fun struggling through 23 years of unmodified group content alone, with an AI partner, or simply enjoy simultaneously playing an entire group of 6 adventurers all by yourself!"

I know that I wouldn't advertise based off the last 15 years. They've had a long time to course correct, and what we have today is the culmination of their actual efforts to gain new customers.

Advertising is often done through a visual medium, which would require screenshots from the game. Everquest is too obsolete to look good in screenshots. When they fix that, I think they should do some advertising, but not before.

https://www.everquest.com/terror-of-luclin?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=carousel is that absolute best screenshots they can offer. I doubt non-eqplayers will be impressed by that.

Ive been playing since 2000 and they have never promoted much about the most it got advertised was when they used to be in game stores when they got released on cd's yea way back lol.

There's a prevalent assumption going on here that new players universally want an easy-mode experience. There's always players like that around but they are definitely not so dominant that it's the only audience worth advertising to. Really don't have to look any farther than game modding to see just how much players are bored with the easy mode games and how much wonkiness they'll tolerate to get a more comprehensive game play experience.

As Andarriel pointed out, they really have never focused on advertising the game that much. Occasionally we seen an ad in a gaming mag, maybe a commercial ran a couple times on TV but never anything like what we see for other game. It's wild when you consider Larian studios did more to advertise their games than any company associated with EQ has ever done for EQ; that company was known for going ultra-light on advertising.

Because it relies too much on word of mouth, which in reality is a double-edged sword for EQ.

They can't even be bothered to make a mobile version of this website. The iPhone came out in June of 2007, just over 15 years ago. Coming here is like opening a time capsule, but in a bad way.

This site is the first thing a potential new customer will see, most likely on a phone or tablet. I can't understand why they haven't spent the paltry amount of money to update their forward facing presence on the internet in all these years. It's a bit embarrassing to be honest, but it's not my source of revenue.

They aren't trying to get any new customers. What we are seeing is slightly enhanced maintenance mode.

The last time they actually tried was TSS in 06', which was when DVDs were phasing out and Blu-ray phased in. Both of which are totally obsolete today. That's how far behind this team is, as far as technology and gaining new customers is concerned. Right now, I can't play because I foolishly bought a 1440p monitor, and can't read most of the tiny UI font. It's very frustrating to say the least.

When they moved to 64 bit I got my hopes up, and I hope they deliver. This game needs to evolve if it wants to do more than tread water, but history says it won't.

I don't think a mobile version of a PC games forums will attract more users and there is the fact that the version of the forums they are on is at least a decade old. Would a mobile version be nice? Sure but it has nothing to do with attracting new users.

Advertising a game that has been run for 23 years without significant re-investment to update it is a fool's errand. Yes, they're making inroads on game code and engine updates. That's great. But past leaders had a different vision for the franchise - one that saw EQ's profits squandered on pie-in-the-sky, tech evangelistic efforts. Smedley was the main problem. His discourse and failed projects are why we are where we are today. I digress.

I am not against advertising EQ. I want the franchise to grow and find greater success. However, it's clear neither EG7 or Ji Ham have any appetite for injecting cash or resources into EQ1 or EQ2. EQ's biggest issue is Holly and Jen and the players have turned the franchise into just enough of a success that it's being left to chug along. But once again the profits are being siphoned off to fund other games. It's sad. It's frustrating. And it's the wrong move. But here we are.