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Poor Marketing by WGT

• DonCaron 5,502 Posts

  Mon, Jul 13 2020 2:13 PM

  JDGHOST:

  DonCaron:

  Running my club, I spend about $100 a month. I buy clubs for members and setup Purse Tournaments for members.

   

  Yeah myself also I spend a ton monthly in the club ...But it's not just me by any means I have some solid donors as well good people and members that help ...Most of who will be gone...If they lose flash game I would estimate half my members (240 now) will just quit...What a sin...Is what it is I guess...I put a lot of time and money building TFC up....

  JD

   

  Yes, I feel a little discouraged by it also.

  All we can do is try to get them to at least give the new game a chance.

• DodgyPutter 4,690 Posts

  Mon, Jul 13 2020 2:44 PM

  JDGHOST:

  But by doing the opposite  and show that the "old timers" want to continue on the flash version? All WGT need's to do is keep it running? Why take it down I promise you people will find ways to play it if its there?....If not maybe they will see lost revenue with PCEA and look to move the flash version to something similar??

  There may be some sense to this, and I know I've pointed this out before but.....what wgt actually say is:

  All major browsers will drop support for Flash at the end of 2020. Our Flash app may continue to work for a bit longer as players upgrade.

  The majority of their pc customers play the flash version and it would be stupid to willfully lose them, they have to wait until.......well really until they can't or the vast majority who still play have switched.

  I think the great hope for getting new pc players was steam and nothing is happening with that. The majority of the few playing there probably came from here. 

  Steam:

  Month                Avg Players        Gain        %gain        Peak Players

  Last 30 days        197.9            -10.8         -5.18%        319

  June 2020            208.7            -17.7         -7.82%        319

  May 2020             226.4            -26.1        -10.33%       359

  April 2020            252.5   

  
  

• DonCaron 5,502 Posts

  Mon, Jul 13 2020 3:47 PM

  JDGHOST:

  I respect your thoughts Jim...And am also old school But I disagree with the way to go ...I feel we SHOULD ban together like you said.... But by doing the opposite  and show that the "old timers" want to continue on the flash version? All WGT need's to do is keep it running? Why take it down I promise you people will find ways to play it if its there?....If not maybe they will see lost revenue with PCEA and look to move the flash version to something similar?? There are MANY games out there that depend on flash that have explored that avenue whether it be HTML5 or something else I don't know ...

  JD

  The biggest thing that concerns me about continuing the flash game is:

  1}When it breaks, will they fix it?

  2}You have to have a Browser with flash built in, can we get those if current one breaks?

  My older Maxthon Browser  has built in flash, I have deleted the update for the browser and the Flash Player. Neither one has ever updated although I get nasty messages.

• ASD1978 477 Posts

  Tue, Jul 14 2020 3:03 AM

  Slimjim001:

  I have been launching from Steam from the time WGTChampion announced it. The reality is that WGT on flash is going the way of the dinosaur and like it or not, there is a new WGT virtual world evolving. I have had an opportunity to experience both these worlds up close and personal and they are as different as night and day and I predict they are not going to mix well. I am old school to the bone and what is happening pisses me off but I have a choice to either adapt or leave. If we give in to our anger and fly our banner "I shall not be moved", we will certainly be left with a fragmented world which will not work well or maybe not at all. Even though I am disappointed with the nature of the new population of players (gamers) I have encountered on PCEA, I will likely keep playing. Here is my suggestion if we old schoolers hope to save anything of our wonderful virtual world of WGT golf. We may need to move in mass to the new platform and do everything we can to keep our country clubs together. If we stay organized and focused, we may be able to rebuild and maintain some of our old traditions and values even in this strange new arcade-like world. I believe the key to a successful future is keeping our country clubs alive and well. Here is hoping.

  In a nutshell, the flash version has a limited shelf-life so players will, at some stage, be forced to either quit the game or adapt to the PCEA version. I can't remember the last round I played on flash, having been using the PCEA version for months. To go back to the initial thread title - marketing - I've seen quite a lot of adverts for WGT within other games recently so they are trying to bring new players in. It seems that the "marketing" of the product isn't the issue here, rather the direction the game is going in and that's where the problems arise. I didn't open the thread with the suggestion that by giving a 30% discount on all equipment, WGT would've (not could've) generated 5 times their normal revenue! At the end of the day, WGT will either sink or swim - my guess is they'll be ok, but then what do I know?

• beerstine 722 Posts

  Tue, Jul 14 2020 3:23 AM

  I'm one of those few who came in through Steam, mainly because I've been getting bored with Netflix and was looking for some good single player games.  The difference for me is that I'm on a Mac, where there are no other realistic golf games.  I had played the old version on Flash a bit many years ago, and just kind of stumbled into it again.  I had no idea there was a Mac version until a couple of months ago.

  Whether through Steam or the App Store, they need to better market to an audience that isn't really aware this game exists.  Steam probably isn't the best vehicle, much of that audience is looking for shooters, fantasy and strategy games.  Apple is moving toward merging the code base of Mac and IOS and that might make it easier to support the game on both platforms in the future.

  Like it or not, Flash is going away and Adobe itself is killing it.  Let's hope that there's time to keep improving the PCEA version before it goes dark at the end of the year.  

• Slimjim001 1,053 Posts

  Tue, Jul 14 2020 4:10 AM

  I have one final thought. I've wondered at times why WGT doesn't just tell us where this will all end up but now I'm thinking that they probably don't know either. In the end, this thing is about money and I'm betten' the decision makers are not stupid people. It will end up where the most money spenders are.