02 May 2024

Gaming Marketing Cycle | ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN

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We could be seeing Total War: Warhammer 3’s redemption after months of backlash

Sales for the sale throne, reviews for the review god

A still from the Total War Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires trailer, showing a white bearded dwarf looking very angry and pointing over a table at someone off screen
Yesterday, coinciding with the release of the Thrones of Decay DLC, Total War: Warhammer 3 jumped 90 places in the Steam charts, trailed closely by the three lord packs that make up the strategy game's latest expansion. Those lord packs are now the three top rated expansions in the series’ history, and the base game itself saw a huge uptick in positive reviews. The last day also saw a peak player count of around 66,000, putting it ahead of giants like PalworldRimworld, and Fallout 76. None of this would be especially notable, however, if this wasn’t a complete turnaround from how things have been for the best part of a year now.

On the Twarhammer side, the deterioration of Creative Assembly’s relationship with their fans started with the announcement of Shadows of Change. Specifically, its price.

DLC prices had been rising before then. The Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs, for example, was around 25% higher than comparable releases, although the quality and size of this expansion meant that a few rumblings never transformed into the full blown revolt that occurred when it was announced that Shadows of Change would cost the same amount. Particularly irksome to the community here was the explanation that the increase from the standard two updated factions to three precipitated the mark up, but that the customary accompanying free lord wouldn’t be happening.

Fuel to this fire was a follow-up statement from CPO Rob Bartholomew. “This is the business reality of supporting WARHAMMER III and ensuring we’re able to offer the years of extra content that are currently planned,” wrote Bartholomew, which was taken by many as veiled ‘buy it or we’ll kill it’ threat, warranted or not. . .

For what it’s worth, I loved Thrones of Decay, and believe it deserves this success, although it’s clear that most of these reviews are coming from a place of emotion rather than experience, since the content has been in the wild for less than a day.

That said, CA did take a different approach with pre-release marketing this time around, showing off all the content in detail before players could access pre-orders, so this positive reception isn’t coming from blind faith - if you’ve played the game for any amount of time, you’ve generally got a solid idea of what the DLC entails.

Watch on YouTube

Still, it’s a fair indicator that this perhaps slightly premature jubilation is as much a review of CA’s approach to this content as the content itself. A gauge of how happy the fanbase is with the company - as Steam reviews often are, for good or ill. Notable changes during this marketing cycle include the aforementioned holding back on pre-order links, as well as having the developers feature as talking heads in the trailers injecting commentary on the content. . .

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