Jump to content
3DXChat Community

Where 3DXChat fails in marketing


Twiggy

Recommended Posts

I started playing in 3DXChat in 2014 and have been involved in these forums for much of the time since then. I haven't played for over 2 years but still do often look in these forums to see if anything interesting has been added to the game.

Not long before I joined I was a university student at which I did a side course for certificate 4 marketing and communication, really just an entry level course for marketing but did get some good insights into the basics of marketing.

Over the years I have watched what 3DXChat has done with it's marketing and have noticed they don't even seem to know the basics. They have failed and continue to fail badly in several aspects of which some should be very obvious. For example this forum is and always has been its most valuable marketing tool. The forum generates more potential customers than any other medium they have yet they have never applied anything in the forum to influence potential new customers to join.

If you type 3DXChat in google the very 1st link that shows in the list, here in Australia anyway, is the forum. So a good number of interested people who are looking for information on 3DXChat would find their way to the forum. This is apparent through the numbers that visit this this forum. There are always close to 100 guest showing as actively looking through the forum and a good percentage of them would be people looking for information on 3DXChat. To get an estimate of how many of these could be potential customers you can work on estimated averages. If each visitor stays for an average of 1 hour then 100 times 24 hours is 2,400 visitors per day. If the average of these guest visitors are people looking for information on 3DXChat is say 50% then the forum generates 1,200 people per day looking for information on the game. Now those figures can be lower or higher depending on what the percentages actually are but I think it is fairly safe to say there are plenty of potential customers finding their way to these forums.

What does the forum do to turn all these potential customers into customers, very little. There should at least be a very stand out link to the main 3DXChat website, there would only be a small amount would click on "Download and play 3DXChat" when they are just reviewing. Also the main website, 3DXChat.com, does not even appear in the 1st 2 pages of the google search when 3DXChat is typed in for a search. And even then the main website is very outdated and never really has been a good influence to have people join the game. My opinion is the front page of the forum should include very well done marketing strategies to influence as many of these potential customers to join as possible. If done right it could possibly produce as many as 100 new customers every day.

In an online game such as 3DXChat there are 3 main points in a marketing strategy that need to be constantly reviewed.

1) Attracting new potential custom and influencing them to join.

2) Watching how many new customers stay after the initial 1st period.

3) The average time each customer stays a customer.

3DXChat has always failed badly in all 3 and over years and has really only tried to find new ways to attract new custom. There has never been enough done to try improve on the amount of people that try the game and do not go past the 1st month. There most definitely needs to be more done to help new players settle into the game. 

Sorry ran out of time, I will add to this later.

Edited by Twiggy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First question that appears in my head when talking about 3dxchat's marketing: "if 3dxchat servers hardware/software really can handle increased player base?" Because if the answer is no there is no point in any kind of marketing. 

If the answer is yes though... First thing that they should do is to make official website appear as a first result when someone searching "3dxchat". In my country when I search "3dxchat" in google, 3dxforum only is 6th result and official website not even on first two pages. They should make search engine optimization on their front page and if it's not enough - pay Google to make their website appear first in advertisement section when someone searching "3dxchat". And the website itself requires some proper work on it, maybe even complete remake. It doesn't even have a mobile version.

Then, after fixing their website and making it appear first - they really need new trailer. Most people will first of all watch the short video, not read all the stuff on the site or forum. Current trailer is very outdated. It shows such an old version of the game that I did not even play it and I am here for 2 years. It shows such a poor options of character customisation (which is very important for the game like this), clearly underrepresenting the game and making a potential customer believe that 3dxchat has much much less content than it really has currently.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If someone googles '3dxchat', that person is likely to find the correct website in the end. But to attract new players, their website needs to get optimized for other search terms, like:

  • adult 3d chat world
  • MMO sex game
  • Adult multiplayer sex game
  • etc.

The current website fails to be found with these terms right now, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, ColinDude said:

If someone googles '3dxchat', that person is likely to find the correct website in the end. But to attract new players, their website needs to get optimized for other search terms, like:

  • adult 3d chat world
  • MMO sex game
  • Adult multiplayer sex game
  • etc.

The current website fails to be found with these terms right now, though.

That's true but it's much much more difficult. If devs will try to achieve first positions on these keywords they will face a real competition. I doubt that they can handle it. But they can create a pleasing and attracting experience for new potential players who already heard about this game somewhere. By making official website easily searchable, good looking and providing actual information, not showing 3 or 4 or I don't even know how old, outdated trailer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If someone types 3DXChat they have already found out about the game and very likely know a little of what to expect. Xizi is right in what she says, the main website is really old, I don't think it has changed much from when I started in 2014. There is so much more can be done to show people a better view of the game and influence them to give it a try. 

It has very much always been that the forum comes up before the main website in a search, I think that is because the forum generates its own traffic which counts towards where it is placed in the search. A lot of people looking for the forum must just type 3DXChat. 

Yes the devs could pay to get the main site up higher, from memory that works on a bidding system and how much it would end up costing I don't know, but it is not really the point. They already, and for some time now had the forum coming up high in the search so they could just utilise that. Even just a better link on the front page of the forum to show potential customers where to go would make a difference.

The forum is rather easy to update and add to where as updating the main website would involve more work. They could easily add to and continue to update the front page of the forum and improve how they cater for potential new custom that go there.

Over the years I have seen the devs try different things to try generate new custom, they even had competitions for players to make banner adds and have tried placing those adds in various places. They have shown they want to increase the amount of people joining the game but have always failed to do the basics. Search engine optimisation and such. 

The easiest thing for them to do right now is to take advantage of the traffic already going to the forum, of which I would say there are quite a few just trying to get information on the game and what to expect. A catchy way of guiding those people to some well thought out representation of the game could generate quite a bit of new custom and can be very easy to do.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, LucyT said:

Just an honest question to your suggestion: How much do you think the player base can reach with full marketing? Are there players out there for such games, like have you seen them in other games similar to this?

now thats a good question ...

i will mention that millions of people watch 3d sex animated videos i mean like manyyyyyyy milions like many many many millions ..now logic says if you watch 3d animated sex videos why not play a 3d sex game and instead watch ...live it a lil :) 

Small example 

My 3dxchat videos have 500k+ views meaning potential clients the thing is ppl come and leave fast cause they get bored many ppl dont come to get all friendly and build a life here they come purely for 3d sex and fantasies  and the updates poses wise are very limitted and current poses can go so far 

if 3dxchat wanna grow it has to respect all the sex orientations -has to produce tons of poses so ppl dont get bored -has to produce more clothes so  avatars has diversity and please any kink ppl may have -has to produce updates more frequently ..example 1 person buys 1 month they come then their sub ends and they didnt even had the chance to experience 1 lil update .

Online games are about new content so players dont get bored (if you come here to find friends etc build a life whatever i dont know then u might not care about that stuff ) 

But those that come purely for 3d sex and fantasies they do care and they want updates to keep them here .

Thats why the pose editor would be the best update allowing ppl potentialy make their own kinky poses /fantasies and live it in game 

be it ur into bdsm lesbian bi gay or u have foot fetish whatever lol u would be able to create the pose u realy want and live ur own fantasy and it doesnt stop there ...that editor would keep you busy would make you create more and more making it addictive lol  but Devs said recently they havent worked on that pose editor :) 

its like the build editor that keep u busy building a house a club then make it better build another it give u something to do and as we have seen it has grown so much with sites sharing rooms others have build in case some ppl cant build etc ..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few years ago I did a post in here about something I had found while going through my old study books. It was all about how conscription based businesses reach a maximum depending on the 3 aspects I mentioned in a post earlier in this thread. How many join each month, how many stay past the initial period and the average time people stay. What happens is that in any subscription based business it will over a certain time reach its maximum numbers as it gets to a stage where there as many leaving as there is new custom. If the 3 sets of numbers stay the same it will from then on only hover around that figure. I saw 3DXChat had seemed to reach that stage at around 7,000 players about 3 years ago. When I started it was growing by about 1,000 per year, I saw the celebrations of it reaching 2,000 and grow from there. I saw it grow rapidly in numbers when some really good updates were added but soon after drop back again. I also noticed that the yearly big update which would attract a lot of players back lost a lot of its ability to do so. Gizmo has often tried different things to try build the numbers, so I doubt very much he would be looking to keep it where it is because of server size, plus it is not that hard or expensive to set up bigger servers.

What I have seen over the years is Gizmo go very up and down on what I would call enthusiasm towards working on the game, especially as its growth in numbers began to stall.

In answer to your question LucyT I know that RLC had in the tens of thousands and yes I would say that 3DXChat could get there as well. 1,000 new players a year is only 20 per week which is very low, if they doubled that then over a few years the 7,000 would double to 14,000. If they improved the amount that keep playing on after the initial 1st month it would again make a huge difference. Then if they did as Alivia said and started adding better features to the game more regularly people would tend to stay longer improving the numbers again. My opinion is the game could easily get well into the tens of thousands.

Edited by Twiggy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/11/2020 at 2:12 PM, Leathium said:

If they advertise it more than now, the server will crash even more often. So I assume they are at the brink, they can't go for more paying customers.

We have not experienced any visitor-related server crashes since the release of the new server. We have yet to find out what the new server is capable of. As far as I know, it is optimized for a large number of visitors 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Lisa said:

We have not experienced any visitor-related server crashes since the release of the new server. We have yet to find out what the new server is capable of. As far as I know, it is optimized for a large number of visitors 

How long will it take to work on it? I mean that new server.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ☙𝔼𝕩❧ said:

How long will it take to work on it? I mean that new server.

Sorry if I misunderstood your question. You are already playing on the new server.

There are many more bugs in there, but we are working on fixing them. For now this is due to the implementation of several algorithms and services that protect against DDoS attacks. From time to time, we have to reboot the server for the fix to take effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Lisa said:

Sorry if I misunderstood your question. You are already playing on the new server.

There are many more bugs in there, but we are working on fixing them. For now this is due to the implementation of several algorithms and services that protect against DDoS attacks. From time to time, we have to reboot the server for the fix to take effect.

It looks like I misunderstood your previous answer. I`ll try to be clear.

How long will it take to fix bugs and other problems on the current server? Is there any approximate time?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, ☙𝔼𝕩❧ said:

It looks like I misunderstood your previous answer. I`ll try to be clear.

How long will it take to fix bugs and other problems on the current server? Is there any approximate time?

It's an endless process 🤔

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I can see a lot of the marketing by 3dx seems to be done by these "review" websites where I guess they get a share of the money for signups - they all seem to give it pretty positive reviews (well they have to right, kerrrrching!). One imagines BMT Micro provides 3dx with figures on how long people stay paying, and I guess it gives them the ability to entice them back etc with discounts or whatever (if they want to). I guess having viewed various adult 3d games you might search for images or "3dxchat review" at which point a lot of websites appear. I've often heard people suggest a free trial is a good idea, but I suspect this might be a bad idea as I seem to recall the early days are quite lonely whereas if you paid for a month you might as well use it?

I'm not sure I agree with your point that the forum is a good marketing tool. I guess it can be as you can see events (3dx is alive!), but I think you have to sign up to see large parts of the forum? I don't sign up to a toaster forum when I decide what toaster I want to buy. I bought my car (Fiesta) based on reviews on car websites and I liked the test drive (I did test drive a Polo but stalled it like 20 times). Forums are for when you toaster works some of the time, but not all the time or when a mechanic says this is wrong and you want advice or support on your car. 

Also you may wish to check your textbook and search for the rule of diminishing returns. So for example the server may accomodate 10,000 users, but to get user 10,001 onboard you need a new server. Or for example rooms may become too crowded as to become unsueable (eg people can't hear the music as the stream used can only be heard by 50 people) or 300 people in Sin means you can't even get in. The point I'm making is there is a level at which too many people is a bad idea.

Also not sure I agree with your overall argument they failed in marketing as didn't you suggest Gizmo was living in a villa a few years ago:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, AHT said:

Also you may wish to check your textbook and search for the rule of diminishing returns. So for example the server may accomodate 10,000 users, but to get user 10,001 onboard you need a new server. Or for example rooms may become too crowded as to become unsueable (eg people can't hear the music as the stream used can only be heard by 50 people) or 300 people in Sin means you can't even get in. The point I'm making is there is a level at which too many people is a bad idea.

Also not sure I agree with your overall argument they failed in marketing as didn't you suggest Gizmo was living in a villa a few years ago:)

If the number of players increases, the game must be improved! For example, a larger, more complex common space will be needed. But yes, you have to buy a new server too ... but the company will have money, won't it? That is, grow your company with employees and have a new server as well. I think that’s the purpose of 3DXChat ... more money, more advanced company. Don't worry if this happens, but have to do it for themself ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, AHT said:

From what I can see a lot of the marketing by 3dx seems to be done by these "review" websites where I guess they get a share of the money for signups - they all seem to give it pretty positive reviews (well they have to right, kerrrrching!). One imagines BMT Micro provides 3dx with figures on how long people stay paying, and I guess it gives them the ability to entice them back etc with discounts or whatever (if they want to). I guess having viewed various adult 3d games you might search for images or "3dxchat review" at which point a lot of websites appear. I've often heard people suggest a free trial is a good idea, but I suspect this might be a bad idea as I seem to recall the early days are quite lonely whereas if you paid for a month you might as well use it?

I'm not sure I agree with your point that the forum is a good marketing tool. I guess it can be as you can see events (3dx is alive!), but I think you have to sign up to see large parts of the forum? I don't sign up to a toaster forum when I decide what toaster I want to buy. I bought my car (Fiesta) based on reviews on car websites and I liked the test drive (I did test drive a Polo but stalled it like 20 times). Forums are for when you toaster works some of the time, but not all the time or when a mechanic says this is wrong and you want advice or support on your car. 

Also you may wish to check your textbook and search for the rule of diminishing returns. So for example the server may accomodate 10,000 users, but to get user 10,001 onboard you need a new server. Or for example rooms may become too crowded as to become unsueable (eg people can't hear the music as the stream used can only be heard by 50 people) or 300 people in Sin means you can't even get in. The point I'm making is there is a level at which too many people is a bad idea.

Also not sure I agree with your overall argument they failed in marketing as didn't you suggest Gizmo was living in a villa a few years ago:)

As I said in my post the forum gets a lot of traffic of which a good number of them are likely to be people looking for information on the game. Looking at the amount of guest are in the forums that figure is likely to be hundreds every day. The forum as it is is like you say, not really meant to promote the game. There are a couple of links to pages that are there for people who are looking to review the game but they are not very well done. Also they are not really that obvious for people who are looking to review. Yes lots of people look at reviews where 3DXChat have maybe paid for good reviews but there are also others that have bad reviews. No matter what happens on that side of things does not matter to what I am saying, which is because the forum comes up high in the search engines if you search "3DXChat", then it is almost certain a lot of people looking to find information on the game will click that link. It is very unlikely that players from the game would generate 100 guest at just about any time. Also how many players are going to do a search for "3DXChat" and click on the link for the forum. 

If you look at what Lisa said she actually stated the new server is optimised for a large number of visitors. Servers for a Unity game to cater for tens of thousands of visitors does not have to be a massive server. The way Unity works is to put a lot of the load on players/client computers when they open their rooms. When they do that their room becomes a new scene in Unity where the players/client computer does a lot of the server work. So if there is 300 people in a room then it would be more based on how good the room owners computer and Internet connection is. That has always been that way and is why some people can host with a lot of people and others can't. As the numbers have grown in the game the number of rooms open in the rooms list has grown. If the player population grew to say double what it is now that list would grow accordingly. Getting 100 people in your room has always been a high number to get, that was the same when there was only around 3,000 people in the game. Now it has around 7,000 if that is correct, 100 still remains the same high number for rooms. 

If they had some better links, like even just saying "About 3DXChat" which then leads to a well done promotion page, then potential customers could be more drawn into signing. At the moment they have "Download and play 3DXChat" which a lot of people would think that is just to download the game after you have decided to play. Another is "Read First" which links to a page that does have some information on the game but does not really sell it. Plus again how many potential players would click on that. It needs something like "SEE WHY 3DXChat IS THE NUMBER 1 SEX GAME IN THE WORLD" then the potential new players would be more likely to click on it. From there the page it links to should be very well done in the aim of selling the game to potential customers.

If I was one of the devs I would think about maybe a competition for people to create videos to sell the game. Then create that page with really clear and well presented information of what the game is today, not what it was several years ago.

I did this thread because I believe they have for at least four years been likely missing a lot of custom because they have not recognised the potential of the traffic that the forum gets and how many are likely potential new customers.

Plus also a lot of those review web sites that you were talking about are really old reviews, they talk about how the game and what was available from years ago. So anyone looking at them and then looking for something from the game itself are going to see what the game offered years ago.

Plus I have never said anything about Gizmo living in a Villa, but have said I think he would be doing well out of the game and have even said he may be just happy with the amount he is making and could be the reason he doesn't work on it much. But I still think he would be interested in anything that could raise his returns without having to do a lot of work to do so.

Edited by Twiggy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/13/2020 at 8:18 AM, Lisa said:

We have not experienced any visitor-related server crashes since the release of the new server. We have yet to find out what the new server is capable of. As far as I know, it is optimized for a large number of visitors 

This is great and thank you for that information.

Can you possibly let us know why the pose editor has been withdrawn from being added to the game. There are a lot of players that could maybe help sort out the problem.

Edited by Twiggy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I come from second life (because 3dx has better graphics but..) compare to SL 3dxchat is child in terms of marketing. i joined this game because friend told me but i notice that it doesn't have many poses or clothes for any character despite in development for 8 years.

second point is on forum many people also complained that Dev. rarely response to players and plan for future update etc. (this discourage many players)

third point is some of players i met have tons of gold in their account but no use at all except buy photo slot or send gifts (to me its useless as well) so instead let them accumulate xgold Dev should find a way to let them spent by providing store where they could purchase via xgold. some new skins or clothes and even houses.

Fourth is Very easy way to marketing the game is on twitter but go to 3dxchat twitter. they rarely post anything regarding game, event or other stuff except official announcement. website is very poor too. there are many ways to market the game by spending little money if you know how.

Fifth @Gizmo & @Lisa hire some people and make a team who can market the game, give players new poses and clothes because more players = more money (2 people can't manage whole game). servers are expensive but when you will have more players will give you money too. SL has reached closely 1 million players. your game is better than SL (SL graphics are 15 yrs old) only if you are serious to make money and want to grow this game to next level.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Lexilore said:

third point is some of players i met have tons of gold in their account but no use at all except buy photo slot or send gifts (to me its useless as well) so instead let them accumulate xgold Dev should find a way to let them spent by providing store where they could purchase via xgold. some new skins or clothes and even houses.

Yeah yeah.

Another "I Came From The Older Worlds Why 3dxchat Is Not Like The Older Worlds Please Make It The Same Way" player.

Adding the store in game in its current state not going to make game any better, it's not going to improve the amount of content available to players. Actually, it only will cut the amount of available content for people who are not old players with pockets full of xgold and who are not willing to buy additional money on top of their subscription. 3dxchat already developing with pretty slow speed and adding an in-game shop not going to increase this speed. Actually it will do quite the opposite. It will make updates even more sparse for people who can't afford buying new stuff, because part of new stuff in updates would be added in shop instead of being given to everyone. On top of it, developing a shop itself can take quite amount of time. Time, that could be used to add some valuable features people were asking for years. Erection system for example. Piercings. Editors. Minigames. Custom textures. 

"But they can hire more people!" someone could say in response. Indeed. Maybe they could. But.

1. They could hire more people and even without adding ingame shop it would boost the project a lot.

2. It's not a first time someone advising devs to hire more people. If they would have desire and money for it – they probably would already do it.

"But income from the shop could give them money!" 

Yes, it could. But it also could discourage some players from renewing their subscription. Because atmosphere of fair-play and equality where every subscriber have whole game's content available to them is a big part of this game's attraction for many people.  

If game would have clothes/poses editors – maybe adding the shop would be a good idea. I don't say I support this idea, but I can see it working. People making content, getting money from it (at least in game), devs rising income by selling more currency, players who don't want use it still getting regular updates from devs, people who can pay – getting more and more stuff. Yes, it would ruin the equality but at least it would have a big advantage – enriching game with a lot new content and bonus motivation for users to create stuff.

But let's get from the skies back on earth. 

To make it possible devs would need to:

1. Develop editors.

2. Develop shop.

3. Make sure shop is secure.

And all of it while probably having only one programmer. Who already have a lot of things to do, even without it. So... I doubt it's gonna happen.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Lexilore said:

I come from second life (because 3dx has better graphics but..) compare to SL 3dxchat is child in terms of marketing. i joined this game because friend told me but i notice that it doesn't have many poses or clothes for any character despite in development for 8 years.

second point is on forum many people also complained that Dev. rarely response to players and plan for future update etc. (this discourage many players)

third point is some of players i met have tons of gold in their account but no use at all except buy photo slot or send gifts (to me its useless as well) so instead let them accumulate xgold Dev should find a way to let them spent by providing store where they could purchase via xgold. some new skins or clothes and even houses.

Fourth is Very easy way to marketing the game is on twitter but go to 3dxchat twitter. they rarely post anything regarding game, event or other stuff except official announcement. website is very poor too. there are many ways to market the game by spending little money if you know how.

Fifth @Gizmo & @Lisa hire some people and make a team who can market the game, give players new poses and clothes because more players = more money (2 people can't manage whole game). servers are expensive but when you will have more players will give you money too. SL has reached closely 1 million players. your game is better than SL (SL graphics are 15 yrs old) only if you are serious to make money and want to grow this game to next level.  

Totally agree!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Free trial would be a two sided medal. On one hand it would have the benefit to be able to have a sneak peek for free.

The other side would be, no need for a credit card would be an invite for the pimpled-16-years-old.

And honestly, one month right now is 10$. This equals not even a reasonable meal in a restaurant. Nor a reasonable bottle of wine.

So what about? If one owns a credit card, one might not be so desperately poor to really mind about wasting 10 bucks, no?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...