Dofus Wrap Report

Marketing the game internationally was a big bet. Indeed, few of us have any knowledge about international marketing and even less experience... We have had a hard time reaching the media and thus the gamers. At the beginning, our communication techniques were quite basic; we posted topics in gamer and general discussion forums in order to attract beta testers, and we relied on word of mouth! As an independent game developer and publisher, we cannot rely on existing structures, and we have to do everything ourselves regarding marketing and advertising.

there are permanent interactions between the game team and the members of the community. A longer beta permits strengthening those relations, as the players follow and participate in the game's development and evolution.

Best Decisions Emmanuel "Manu" Darras: We think that our best decision was to make quite a long beta test (about a year) that has permitted development of the game according to the testers tastes, but above all, has permitted the creation of a very united community spirit among the players and has built up player loyalty to Dofus.

In our minds, another very good decision we made prior to launch was to offer low prices - less than US $7- and a free game download in order to attract more people. We did not want to make cutting edge prices and attract hardcore gamers only. The humorous, fun spirit of the game has drawn really diverse types of players and even people that are "normally" not gamers, so we obviously wanted to offer a lower price because non-gamers are not willing to pay high prices.

The third best decision we made was to remain independent. Indeed, we could have easily accepted interesting purchase offers from other companies, but we wanted to keep our freedom in terms of game development and choices. If we had chosen to merge or to be taken over by another company, our power of decision would certainly have been hindered, and thus our creativity and ambition too.

Key Strengths Emmanuel "Manu" Darras: As I mentioned before, staying independent was one of our best decisions and, I think, is one of our key strengths. It allows us to make all decisions ourselves and foster our ambitions. It has also allowed us to be closer to our community members and thus build strong ties with them.

The second of Dofus' primary strengths is related to the first; indeed, the strong community aspects of the game make the players have fun and have a good time every time they log into the game or the forums. This has built up the players' loyalty to Dofus.

The last but not least important advantage of Dofus is its cartoonish graphics, funny atmosphere and even more its permanent evolution. Indeed, Dofus is constantly changing; new features are regularly added, including maps, monsters, quests, dungeons... Moreover, we try to make as many events as possible in order to entertain the gamers and give them more diversity.

Areas for Improvement Anthony "Tot" Roux: We want to prepare and make more events than we currently do. We think that events are part of the evolution of the game. If you always bring the players something new, they will keep playing simply because they enjoy themselves! On the contrary, a game that does not provide new content and features to the player regularly is destined to a quick death because the players will rapidly get bored.

Another point we wanted to develop and improve was the PvP fighting system. We wanted to make it more interesting for the player to have PvP fights by making it more tactical and by giving it more important stakes and consequences.

Emmanuel "Manu" Darras: Our major weakness regarding the marketing of Dofus international is the positioning. Indeed, Dofus lacks a strong brand name and visibility. In contrast to the French version, communication for Dofus International by word of mouth was not that successful.

Our primary goal is now to broaden our communication campaigns in order to attract more "casual gamers", because we believe that Dofus is a game for many people, not only designed for hardcore gamers.

Lessons Learned Anthony "Tot" Roux: Anthony "Tot" Roux: Dofus itself has been a big lesson for us. It allowed us to learn more in the field of MMORPGs. We can make the game evolve and develop new features much quicker than at the very beginning of the Dofus story.

Emmanuel "Manu" Darras: We have also learned much with the international version of Dofus. For example, the seven-day free trial worked well in France, and at first, seemed to be a good solution to attract players to Dofus international too. However, we noticed that players throughout the world needed more time to try it out, so we changed the "discovery mode" from seven days to a completely free area without a time limit, where the players can level their characters and get more into the game.

Camille "Kam" Chafer: Another lesson we learned with Dofus was that the beta test for the international version proved to be too short to build up strong ties between the players and the game team. These are really important, especially for an MMORPG, because there are permanent interactions between the game team and the members of the community. A longer beta permits strengthening those relations, as the players follow and participate in the game's development and evolution.