7 Digital Marketing Lessons From The New Maplestory M
As if phubbing wasn’t a deep enough problem in our digital-crazy era, a ghost from the past has come back to haunt us. Nexon released a mobile version of their heralded PC game globally, Maplestory M, on Wednesday, 25th July 1pm. Maplestory M started their page on May 14, garnering more than 200,000 followers since. It is probably the most successful launch of a mobile game since Pokemon Go. So what can we learn from this?
Nostalgia sells
People always reminisce about the good old days, so leveraging on nostalgia often generates hype and engagement. Looking at the success of NES Mini, it is evident that nostalgia will always work. And the recent Nokia 3310 revival in this Google Pixel-iPhoneX frenzied world, just accentuates our point further.
Looking for new content? Repackage your past successes!
Know your users, keep up with the trends
At its peak, Maplestory had 92 million players on its global server, and now, only a fraction (15%) of that user base remains active. By adapting to mobile, Maplestory has followed the trends of the growing smartphone industry and adjusted accordingly.
They implemented an autoplay function to allow users to level-up without being physically at their phones, a nice touch to a mobile game. This rekindled the interest for the game and made it more accessible to users worldwide, successfully breathing new life into a dying game.
A digital era requires a team that is keeping up with the trends, get yourself one.
If you don’t get to know your consumers, it won’t be long before they forget you.
Provide hooks to get leads
When Maplestory M announced their global launch, they created a pre-registration page to indicate interest. To incentivise it, they provided sign up bonuses for in-game characters. Within a very short period of time, they generated more than 1 million leads.
However, no follow up on the leads was performed by Maplestory M, which brands could learn to improve upon.
To get the fishes, you need a bait.
Learn from past mistakes
Maplestory used to be a grind-it-out game, with users playing countless hours to level up. In response, many users started creating modified private servers that has improved levelling experience, causing Maplestory to lose a bulk of their players.
(Credit: Maplestory M)
They learned by having a easier levelling system in Maplestory M, which caused users to stay hooked to the game without having to play for long hours.
If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you will never learn.
Get social and get out there
People enjoy spending time with their friends. Maplestory M leveraged on this by creating dungeons, an adaption of the party quests in their PC game. This feature encouraged users to invite friends to play alongside them, and subsequently increased their user base.
Encourage social so that consumers will encourage you.
Don’t bug your users to pay
The last thing you want is to annoy your consumers. Thankfully, Maplestory M made the right choice by not forcing users to pay to play the game.
By not falling into the same trap as Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, Maplers were able to enjoy the game without interruptions or paying. Despite that, there were still Maplers that were willing to fork out money to improve their gaming experience.
The experience matters. Not the transaction.
Respond to your users
When users were getting restless over the lack of information on the launch date or complaining about issues within the game, they were there to address them. This kept the conversation with consumers going and put the majority of the user base at ease.
If you are facing problems in managing your own social media pages, feel free to consult a digital agency to do it!
Brand has to be personal. People wants to interact with you, not a wall, not a bot.
Want to run a campaign as successful as Maplestory M? Look no further for a team that will welcome that challenge!
