January 13, 2007
Getting trained for the Burning Crusade
The perfectly managed hype and excitement is reaching its zenith for the 7.5 million people who spend their free time roaming the lands of Azeroth. Forget the PS3 (ok, it seems as though quite a few already have) or Harry Potter, at 12:01am Tuesday morning millions will be lined up at Best Buy, GameStop and anywhere else fine software is sold to acquire the first major expansion to the World of Warcraft.
Some lucky patrons in California will even be able to meet, and get autographs from the game designers (to me nothing else signals the shift in where entertainment is headed than this statement).
Teasers have been coming out all week, including the announcement that extended customer service hours would be available. For those not immersed in Warcraft, this expansion to the game is more than just additional content, there are significant changes to gameplay also being introduced. Some of these changes have been slowly introduced over the last month but many are coming Tuesday.
This brings me to the point of the post. With 7.5 million eager subscribers and so many changes happening, how do you work to alleviate some of the burden on your customer support center? Having designed many smaller media products, I know there are always issues to contend with as the product rolls out, regardless of how much testing has been done. Today, as I logged onto the game there was a new teaser that enticed users to go to a Flash site to get more insight into the expansion. I have seen enough hype and would have ignored it but it said ""secret prizes can be found and awarded to your character in-game."
Even if you are not a gamer, take a look at the the Flash site for the Burning Crusade (BC). As I began to work my way through the graphically and musically rich site, I spotted the "secret" exclamation marks embedded on the pages. They popped up small learning challenges. Most very easy and simple, but you had to get 100% to get credit (and acquire 1 of 5 elements needed to get whatever the secret prize is). After the first one, I realized I was being trained on the new game elements.
If you look at the site, it will be evident that Blizzard spent quite a bit of money on developing this mix of hype and training for their game. If, however, it reduces call-center volume or boosts sales of the product by a small margin, the expense was worth it.
(Designer/business hat coming off): Even as a jaded, self-aware player, I am going back now to see what challenge pops up next and to see what "secret item" I can earn. Great design is an amazing thing...
Posted by Rovy at January 13, 2007 9:07 AM
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