EVE - Online & Poland

[theorbis]

Hello everyone,

My name is "The Orbis" and i work in the marketing department of CCP in Iceland.

At the moment i am responsible for marketing campaign CCP is doing in Poland among other things. In light of that i have been contacting various players from Poland over the past month for the purpose of marketing research.  I would like to express my thanks to all players who had the time and will to help me out with their ideas and suggestions. it was much appreciated

The reason i am creating this thread is to continue with this trend of communication between CCP and polish community. Xarthias was kind enough to create an account for me and direct me to this forum, so thank you Xarthias 
I dont want this research to be a one time thing, but a continuous process. Therefore i would like to invite everyone to post their constructive comments and ideas here regarding the presence of EVE-Online in Poland.

I will repeat once more that i am working in marketing department, therefore please do not post comments about game play or bugs as i have no access to that and considering my programming knowledge its better it stays that way 

However, if you have a suggestion on how to improve the experience of polish players in EVE then please do come forward and take your time to write it.

I have been told that polish players prefer buying time codes with cash instead of paying with credit cards. Majority would like to have a retail box of EVE. Some have troubles with English so it might be good idea to have a forum section on eve-online in polish.  What web sites are good to advertise at, what stores can sell time codes, what events can we visit... and etc...

It is suggestions like those i am hoping to hear from you. Give me something i can work with and i will do my best to make it happen. Unfortunately i do not speak polish so i would appreciate if you can write your comments in English or ask someone to do it for you.

I truly hope to receive a good feedback here and i will try my best to post as often as i can. 

Looking forward to first comments

Best Regards,
The Orbis - CCP

[vulor]

first?

OMG I'm in first official GM thread @ centrala 

I'll write more after I read GM post.

I think It's a great thing that you take so much effort in advertising EVE in Poland.

I'm really looking forward for all the EVE related merchandise stuff CCP in going to prepare with White Wolf, and it would be great to be able to buy it all in Poland without having to pay extra shipping costs.
Oh, and those EVE Thermochromic mugs available at eve store are great. I'd love to be able to buy one of those in Poland.

As for the store where you cam sell timecodes. I'd suggest empik (http://www.empik.com), because I got one of those right next to the place where I work

 :smitten: CCP

[Tomash Kovahlsky]

As for the store where you cam sell timecodes. I'd suggest empik (http://www.empik.com), because I got one of those right next to the place where I work

empik is a nice store... but it is not of those cheaper ones... while most of the people here, rather would like to save some cash, buying elsewhere, opposed to buying in a big nice shop. As of my knowledge, CCP is already (or at least has been) selling time codes in Poland through the www.play.pl web-shop, although access to it is sometimes a bit "limited"
having both things in mind, maybe it would be a good idea, to use both, especially for the "gadgets" like the mugs, as then one would be able to go to empik, and see them right on the shelf, and decide if to buy it, or not.

[Ellaine]

And I'd be quite happy to buy in Empik even for 2 PLN more then online

[Michieru]

Regarding online stores, I guess www.gram.pl is worth mentioning. This is an online store of CD Projekt (www.cdprojekt.com, website is in English so You shouldn't have problems looking around) probably the biggest, and definitely the most reliable game distributor in Poland. They already distribute game time codes to World of Warcraft and NCSoft games and, unlike www.play.pl, there are no issues with supply or deliveries.

Hope it helps. Cheers.

[Tigivo Eckhart]

About polish ver. of EVE
Yea there is big group of polish players who don't understand english very well. But polish version wouldn't help them much. They still need english to comunicate with other players.

Payment:
Its a problem to pay for EVE using card. 95-96% of cards in Poland are payment cards not CC's. in many polish banks  buying EVE subsc. using Visa Electron (most popular payment card in PL (about 60%-80% polish cards)) was impossible.

i noticed that now u are accepting Visa Electron, but i dont how well its working.

[przemas]

Another worth mentioning online game shop is www.ultima.pl. ( i think its oldest online game shop)

[Gregorius]

I have to agree with Ellaine - Good idea is to selling Time Cards also by non-e-shop like Empik. It's quite popular, and you don't have to mess with payment on-line etc. Simply - if you' have money in wallet you'll go to the place like Empik and buy TC.

[MightyBaz]

I'm very appriciated that our efforts could be granted at least  :angel:...CCP looks for a new one Partners in our country - I dont afraid It is great challenge, so  I recommend eve centrala as a first, because eve centrala is the biggest forum 'as is'.. .
I hope you dont refuse any help to develop polish eve version I mean storyline, items base etc...
Secondly If we find out some possibilities to sell TC via eve centrala that will be good news for all of us. Some special discount wanted 

Besides I wanna thx a lot for your professional engagement

rgs, Mighty Baz

[yaakuza]

Hello Sir
The first thing that i want say is that so im verry happy to finaly see first message from someone from CCP on this site.  When I think about making an advert regarding EVE Online on some Polish language website then i think that the very nice place to atract more players would be an www.ogame.pl . You propably know what kind of game it is.. I think that some people from that(after all quite big) community will atleast "try" eve online.. and who knows what would happen next (ofcourse if advertising over there is possible).. And the second site that comes to my mind is www.wp.pl ..a large web portal with email server and lots of services(even game section with lots of articles demos movies etc).. I think that if the advert will be placed well then it would be almost impossible to miss it and with all the traffic on their site it could be a nice place to fit your company demands Third site could be this portal..its a nice place and still growing..also as Mighty Baz has mentioned earlier its propably the best source for informations regarding EVE in our language.  Among others i want to mention www.mmorpg.pl (the name should talk for itself) www.interia.pl, www.o2.pl (another 2 big web portals with news and other stuff ) .. www.gry-online.pl (very 'specialised' game portal) etc. As of buying an TC, CCG or even E-ON (yup im propably still dreaming:P )  Empik could be a nice place -  they have all the "quite exotic" or "hard to find" stuff like 'pen and paper' type rpg systems, trading card games lake the most known M:TG series along with good selection of fantasy literature figures and else..together with normal press, newspapers, wide selection of magazines (from our country but also some other language press) all of this right on the shelves. Ok and the last thing that i want to write couple words about is our press. I think that the best known, 'most respected', oldest and still functioning   gaming magazine is 'CD-Action' so putting an advert inside or even a demo or trial on their cd's could be a nice move (but after all this one is a little bit  more expensive than others)..the other magazines ( cheaper, so maybe more people are buying them) i remember are 'Click!', 'Play', 'cyberMycha', 'Komputer Swiat Gry' and maybe 'GameStar'-not know if the last one is really that cheap..
Ok thats all i know atm..i hope that it would help you at least a little bit. sorry for any spelling mistakes as my english isn't really great  Once again i want to thank you for your appearance here and I hope that you will stick with us   Kind regards Yaakuza

[garghgor]

About polish ver. of EVE
Yea there is big group of polish players who don't understand english very well. But polish version wouldn't help them much. They still need english to comunicate with other players.

I would not agree with that. Most players always first will be looking for his contrymen. This is why most corps/Alliance in EvE are french-only, russian-only, or polish-only. In our corp we have people (polish) who use greman version of this game because they dont understand english.

I think that making polish version of EvE would be great to community in Poland, and many new players will start this adveture.

[theorbis]

Hello everyone

I am very pleased to see so many constructive replies already. Keep them coming 

I was already familiar with empik and many players seem to point so i tried to contact them twice so far but got no response. I might give them a call soon if they dont reply on my e mails.

Regarding the CD Action mag i am happy to announce that there will be an ad about EVE in the April issue Also they will be doing a review of EVE-Online soon.  Something to look forward to.

I should also mention that we have a deal with gry-online to run some banners in april This is all part of our test marketing campaign. If it goes well we will devote more time and resources to Poland. It is still too soon to speak about localization of EVE into polish, but if player base increases significantly, next step will be GM´s from Poland.

And speaking of GM´s, Vulor, i am not a GM 

Regarding the sale of time codes on eve-centrala, that is something i already had in mind, but i need to discuss it with people who are responsible for it here in CCP and Xarthias too.

Thats all from me on this rainy Tuesday morning 

Best Regards
The Orbis

[MightyBaz]

Regarding the sale of time codes on eve-centrala, that is something i already had in mind, but i need to discuss it with people who are responsible for it here in CCP and Xarthias too.

 

[Dormio]

First of all welcome you on this site ! For sure it is the best source of information for all Polish new players and BTW the oldest one.

I would like to split my post on 3 separated parts:
1. EVE, launguage and new player base
2. Advertisment
3. All "other stuff" and old player base.
Ad.1.
There is a lot of players which do not know english, but know other lanaguages (I myself know at least 3 using: French and German). It would be much simpler for youngers to gain access to the EVE. Other thing is fact that our education require from all of us to learn other foreign language (the most popular... English), but level is not very impresive.
We discussed this subject several times in the past according to the EVE in Polish. As far as I remeber the agreement was that not everthing should be translated (i.e. names shouldn't). For sure there would be a lot of pleasure to find native information about history and short stories from website. I think that mission description would be welcomed too. All together (UI, stories and mission description) could make EVE more attractive for younder and older players (we found some day in the past that most of us are in age between 28 and 35).

Ad.2.
There should be e-advertisment and tradictional one. For e-ad I would recommend the most popular portals (mentioned before and I will add www.onet.pl) and for sure those for players (I will add www.gery.pl and www.valhalla.pl not the biggest ones but for banners could be ok). There is one another which wasn't mentioned before: merlin.pl, this is a e-shop and most popular source for books in Poland via internet (it has section dedicated for games) as another source of TC and... books with stories from EVE.

Ad.3.
You should know better than me how big is player base from Poland (via payments ?). The biggest problem for new and old players is availability to get TC and pay for EVE. I hope with all those proposed sources there will be enough places to get them. It could make older players to back to EVE but I think that there is one other thing in which could make this kind of back more attractive. We have several stories made by ourselfs (most of them on: Dzienniki Pokładowe) I think it would be great to have them officially translated and put on EVE website. Next one could be mentioned "gadgets" (i.e. mugs and "other stuff"). I think that there would be a huge interest from players if they could get them from stories in Poland (i.e. Empik and others). The problem with them is in fact that shipping costs are too high. A lot of us would have to have a game box and other official materials (EON is the most demanded as far as I know).

On the end... it is great to know that Poland is attractive for CCP ! It's a pleasure to see EVE official on Eve-Centrala board.
And the last one - it would be great for all of us to have official web package provided. We trying to do our best but by providing it the work could be simplified and faster for our webmasters.

[Ezachiel]

Wow, Hello !!
Great, CCP at least look at our small country

Any chance you look for hire a new GM's from Poland 

[nuggerath]

@Edmund

but if player base increases significantly, next step will be GM´s from Poland.

[Ezachiel]

@Edmund

but if player base increases significantly, next step will be GM´s from Poland.

Well, i'm look for new job anyway
Go ppl make new EVE accounts ASAP

[White_Haven]

Well, well, well, things are beginnig to look interesting

I'd like to throw in my own five cents to the discussion. Particularly, I'd like to adress the product availability and visibility issues. The ability to download EVE from the net is great and very convenient and personally, I love it. However, I think that launching a boxed version onto the Polish market could do mireacles to EVE's 'market visibility'. That's also where the Empik store network comes in. One, what you need to bear in mind is that Empik has an extensive nertwork of stores. They're located in all major cities in Poland, and I think (but this is only conjecture) that also means the majority of your potential playerbase. Two, Empik stores are popular spots for "dropping by" - lots of people go there e.g. to read a comic book without buying it but it also means a lot of people would be moving through the place and them... huh? EVE-Online, what's that, looks cool etc.

So, now you've shot two birds with one stone - you got your visiblity by trolling the bait in front of a LOT of people (and it means that some WILL buy) and you beefed up availability by putting it right in front of the nose of those lazies who would never have thought of looking for it in the abyss of the net  . Of course if you pile your planned marketing campaign on top of it... well, you have some intheresting possibilities brewing (ofc. you know that better than I do - you do marketing after all :laugh:).

Now, here is another string to my bow. Someone before me mentioned that most ppl in Poland don't have CCs. Quite right (hence the Polish playerbase age bracket), since they're still not particularly popular here and even more difficult to acquire. However, putting TCs in a place like Empik is a headshot to this particular problem and the fact that they might be a bit more expensive is secondary to their availability - people who don't have the means of doing internet transactions are yours then  .

Ok, I wanted to write something else but I can't remember what it was  :embarassed:.... and it think I've written enough for the moment.

Cheers!

[Xarthias]

About empik.
I try to use my contacts in empik staff to get some info about cooperation.
On the other side, it is worth to try via polish game distributors like cdproject.pl

@Edmund

but if player base increases significantly, next step will be GM´s from Poland.

Well, i'm look for new job anyway
Go ppl make new EVE accounts ASAP

Ed, you are second in queue    :coolsmiley: :2funny:

[MightyBaz]

hm...GM..nice position...what are responsibilities? and what criteria will be?

I ve got the best of the best karma here

[yaakuza]

Regarding the CD Action mag i am happy to announce that there will be an ad about EVE in the April issue Also they will be doing a review of EVE-Online soon.  Something to look forward to.

Then im really looking forward to that issue And what you think about doing some events for us? Or helping us doin our own gatherings out of game?    something similiar to the fanfest.. could be nice to see something like this   And will CCP help with creating some competitions..or take part in those that will be done here? 

[theorbis]

Hi Everyone

Thanks for the comments once again

I agree with all of you that getting into stores, such as empik, is something CCP needs to do and i am working on it. Unfortunately these negotiations often take a long time to complete. I will keep you updated. 

hm...GM..nice position...what are responsibilities? and what criteria will be?

I ve got the best of the best karma here

I am not completely sure on criteria, but 2-3 years of playing EVE-Online and excellent writing skills in English and Polish are a must as far as i know. My rough estimate is it will be at least 7-8 months before we consider hiring GM´s from Poland, considering the number of players we have now and how much we expect to get in the upcoming months. Of course if we are very successful in our marketing it might be sooner

Best Regards from Reykjavik
 The Orbis

[Hastrabull]

well then im fitting into these criterias

on the other note, someone said smthg about events in game for polish community. Possible? not possible?

[theorbis]

well then im fitting into these criterias

on the other note, someone said smthg about events in game for polish community. Possible? not possible?

What type of events you had in mind?

Having global "EVE" events only for polish players is not likely to happen as there is no such thing in EVE-Online history as Poland Events in game are always related to role playing of existing factions.

However if you thought about events outside game, where polish players could gather, it is something that players should organize in my opinion. It is hard and unrealistic to expect CCP to do it as there are hundreds if not thousands of similar gatherings going on around the world.

The events where i can see CCP take part along with some of polish players are game related events and conferences in Poland, where CCP can have a stand with an official representative (me  ) and some of you guys. Also it is possible to have only you guys and we can send in promotional material. This is of course assuming someone is up for it and there are interesting events where we can take part.

Of course if you have suggestions or ideas on other type of events for polish community alone or events where we can co-operate please let me know. I am open to all suggestions.

Best Regards,
The Orbis

[Fall Angelus]

Fun fun

I want to have a ccp mug

[Xarthias]

In-game events - it would by nice to include some polish corporations in them, if they want it.
Out of game events - I want see Eve on some fantasy fest and convents or we can try to organize our own fest.
And one thing about polish localizations. If we can help - then we want to help

[vulor]

Regarding the CD Action mag i am happy to announce that there will be an ad about EVE in the April issue

I just bought it.
Really nice screen shot of Abaddon with a planet occulting sun in background.
All of this on red backgound with EVE logo on top and information about free trial below.

[Xarthias]

We just recived offer to be a GM from Sitel company:
http://www.jobs-clientlogic.de/EVE2007/?lang=en
Is it authorized by CCP? Or it is a some kind of scam?

[Hastrabull]

I just saw add in cd action and i think this add is not the best one we could have.
Polish market is specific market.

1. Text should be in Polish (i know many players know english but still, polish is better in polish magazine)
2. There should be link to eve-online.com but also to polish eve site (here?) so people not using english could know the game
3. There should be more info like how much it cost monthly (in euro and in PLN)

my opinions IMO

[theorbis]

Hi everyone,

We just recived offer to be a GM from Sitel company:
http://www.jobs-clientlogic.de/EVE2007/?lang=en
Is it authorized by CCP? Or it is a some kind of scam?

This is authorized by CCP. Clientlogic will be hiring some GM's from Russia, Germany and France since we are localizing EVE client in those languages. We already had some GM´s from those countries, but we are increasing the number and Client Logic is taking care of it.

I just saw add in cd action and i think this add is not the best one we could have.
Polish market is specific market.

1. Text should be in Polish (i know many players know english but still, polish is better in polish magazine)
2. There should be link to eve-online.com but also to polish eve site (here?) so people not using english could know the game
3. There should be more info like how much it cost monthly (in euro and in PLN)

my opinions IMO

1. Regarding the text, yes i agree it should be in polish, however we had to send the ad withing 2-3 days and there was simply no time to adjust it for Poland. We will do better next time
2. Good idea, will consider it.
3. Also good idea, but as with all our print ad´s, we try to focus on image, not the text. We might have adjust this for Poland though if people prefer to see all kind of information in ad.

Thanks for the feedback

[Ellaine]

Article is better then large Ad. Especially a large ad with little text.
People buy game magazines to read some opinions and details about new games on market and choose what to spend this months 30$ entertaiment found on (or what to download from P2P pirate networks). If they do buy the magazine, they try to make their choice 'rational' knowing as much as possible about as many product as possible. Otherwie, they would just go to a shop and get a game in the best looking box. Ad with Abaddon and "Eve - gratest game universe ever" (I dont remember exactly) is a nice box and should go to a shop in form of large poster. In magazines, pay them to test Eve, point some elements that Youd like to adertise (single universe, endless possibilities, mature player-base and content, player driven economy and politics and so).

Otherwise, all people get to know about Eve from this CD-Action is;
-This game contains Abaddon BS
-There was a great scandal with GM supporting player organizations (ther was a 2 paragrap mini article about that).

[theorbis]

Article is better then large Ad. Especially a large ad with little text.
People buy game magazines to read some opinions and details about new games on market and choose what to spend this months 30$ entertaiment found on (or what to download from P2P pirate networks). If they do buy the magazine, they try to make their choice 'rational' knowing as much as possible about as many product as possible. Otherwie, they would just go to a shop and get a game in the best looking box. Ad with Abaddon and "Eve - gratest game universe ever" (I dont remember exactly) is a nice box and should go to a shop in form of large poster. In magazines, pay them to test Eve, point some elements that Youd like to adertise (single universe, endless possibilities, mature player-base and content, player driven economy and politics and so).

Otherwise, all people get to know about Eve from this CD-Action is;
-This game contains Abaddon BS
-There was a great scandal with GM supporting player organizations (ther was a 2 paragrap mini article about that).

I understand fully what are you trying to say and i agree with points you made, however... "all people get to know about EVE from this CD-Actions" is exactly what we want them to know and that is:

See EVE-Online ad
See a beautiful image from game
See that its possibly to try it for free 14 days
See that its the largest game universe

Nobody knows what abaddon BS is among new players anyway And regarding the scandal, we have to live with it and pretty much every magazine published that news. :/

Sure, we would love to get subscribers straight away, but it is very important to raise the awareness of EVE in Poland among greater population. Then, once we get the reviews and articles about game published people will (hopefully) recall the prior advertisement and be more tempted to try out the game. Thats the logic behind it.

Best Regards,
The Orbis

[MightyBaz]

Dont worry I know what should be done.

Annoucement:

The Orbis wanted***
1,000,000,000 ISK reward for his corpse


cheers

[theorbis]

Dont worry I know what should be done.

Annoucement:

The Orbis wanted***
1,000,000,000 ISK reward for his corpse


cheers

Only 1b ?? 

Can someone help me with a translation of one sentence for a polish lending site i am preparing please? I would appreciate it very much. Here it is:

"Exodus, pilot your own spaceship through an amazing graphic universe while, fighting, trading and communicating with other players."

I noticed that replies slowed down here so i would like to encourage everyone to post their ideas. Xarthias pointed out to me a contest on eve-centrala so i sent a package of goodies from EVE store for the winners. I hope there will be a lot of entries in this contest and i look forward to it.

The Orbis

[Tomash Kovahlsky]

"Exodus, pilot your own spaceship through an amazing graphic universe while, fighting, trading and communicating with other players."

Translation:
Eksodus, kieruj własnym statkiem kosmicznym przez wspaniały graficzny wszechświat, walcząc, handlując i porozumiewając się z innymi graczami.

same, but without Polish national characters:
Eksodus, kieruj wlasnym statkiem kosmicznym przez wspanialy graficzny wszechswiat, walczac, handlujac i porozumiewajac sie z innymi graczami.

You can leave the word "Exodus" with it's English spelling, if you feel it will fit better.
You might want to change the second word "kieruj" (which means to drive, to pilot) to "pilotuj" (which means to pilot, to lead), but I would rather leave it as I wrote it.