Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

In order to improve our ability to spread Planetarion, we would like to recruit a marketing assistant to seek out sites that Planetarion could be freely shown. This job may also involve helping myself and Chef develop the portal to be more "marketing friendly".

Previous experiance is not required, but would be useful. The most important thing about any succesful candidate would be having the drive and motivation to increase the game's player base.

This position will not require an NDA. To apply please email [email protected] with a CV and covering letter (none of this needs to be hugely formal). Only candidates invited to interviews will be contacted. Applications must be received by 7th October 2006.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Isn't that one of the tasks that you and chef are supposed to do with that new "operations department"?
Why the need of yet another person for something that actually does not help Planetarion at the moment?

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Seriously Heartless where does all the PA Team hatred stem from?

You tell him off if it looks like he isn't doing anything.

Then as soon as he does do something you tell him off again!

It's a voluntary position, asking for a Marketing Assistant. Adding someone else to the team to do some work isn't going to do any harm at all - it's not like they're being paid or anything.

The PA-Team-Bashing on here does get pretty tiresome at times :(

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

what he means is kal and whathisname actually appear to be doing nothing other than delegating duties so stop with the anti-counter culture faggotry already !

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

I wouldn't call it hate, more like constantly asking in order to actually get a track record of what PA Team actually does. The problem is not that he is doing something, the problem is that he either does nothing or things which do not help reviving the game (f.e. what jer said - delegating work to other people instead of actually doing some work).
From the job description it's only about firing up google/msn/yahoo searches for websites about online (browser) games and see if they can advertise pa without pa actually having to pay for it. One could already wonder why chef and Kal are unable to do that anyway.

Now, while this at first looks like a good idea, there are several issues with it: People notice that there is this game called Planetarion, and they might even sign up and play - however, after a round or two those people will stop again due to not enjoying the game itself (for various issues which have been adressed over and over again but nothing happened yet). So, what is left is a customer who gained a bad impression about your product and thus is a lot less likely to use the product again. So, as you can see, this marketing strategy might provide a very, very small short-sighted profit at the cost of a much more important mid- to long-term profit.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

I agree that attracting lots of people to the game as it is right now could well be counter productive. One of the things I should probably have said in the OP was that this is all part of planning for 2007. It is PATeam's aim to improve the game significantly over the course of 2007 and as such it is essential to firstly locate good place to push the game and secondly to determine when the best time to do the pushing is based on our internal timescales.

As to the whole delegation thing over actually doing things ourselves, its not that Chef and I are lazy it is that between us we do not have enough time to do this specific task as well as it needs to be done, as such we are asking for help from the community.

As you can see the first output of this department now exists at www.planetarion.com

As vision and strategy statement will be made prior to round start which will include some targets and timescales for the future development of Planetarion. This document is currently being reviewed by the Planetarion staff as a whole in a very constructive and useful manner.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

This sounds all good and fine, however, if the marketing push is planned for sometime in 2007 there surely are 30 minutes of spare time for each of you to google up some pages so it won't require a new position?

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

I quit, so someone had to take over as head PA team basher. Mind you, the applicant list was long and interesting and the CV's were great!

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

I'm sincerely hoping the person who gets the job will spend more than 30 minutes on it. Its not just a case of finding suitable sites, we need to know how to get information on their, think about whether long term relationships might be possible, etc.

I also expect the scope of this position will expand as the department develops. For example I could quite easily see it encompassing some of the affiliates work I have just started working on (expect the affliciates section of the website to have something on it by round start and to develop over the course of the round).

I think the best critiscsm I could be given right now is that I'm not great at writing job adverts, as if I'd made it clearer I wouldn't need to be typing all theese extra posts :)

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Kal, you might start by looking at how other games advertise. I have played quite a few and could find a few places to start with but, like you, I don't have the time this close to round with the multihunting and other things I am doing. I will try to find what I think will help when I get home. I think I have some sites on my computer that would work well along with a little suggestion or two or three.

Kargool, it would be nice to see you put up a constructive post instead of your lame assed attempts at humor.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Thanks Fiery, that would be really useful.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Ehem! I think there is something like this already? > #PAAdvertising ! <

But gr8 idea Kal I tried doing this myself and to be honest its very hard work! Who ever does apply for this job I hope you are dedicated enough and have quite a few hours free to go web surfing for good websites....

I would also reccommend you check there alexia rankings ie.. we dont want a website that only gets visited once in a blue moon :P

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

tbh this "pa is shit" mentality is much more apparent in the older and seemingly more cynical members of pa. Many newer players, including myself, actually enjoy the game as it is and i don't see how attracting new players could ever be a bad thing.
What does have a negative impact on the game is when players start to read the forums and are bombarded with, "pa team is crap", "the games dieing" and the associated rubbish that's on these forums. This in turn then makes the less experienced player less willing to put in the commitment to play the game. Surely constructive critiscm is far more useful than the full on flame fest that many discussions seem to degenerate into.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Surely you can provide some proof for your claim?

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

You mean apart from the countless pages of why the pa team and pa itself are crap on the boards atm?

That the boards are held in such low regard among the majority of newer players i've talked to in the last two rounds?

That their referred to as the "flame boards" amongst even more experienced players i've talked to?

If your looking for recorded conversations showing actual proof of people leaving because of the negative attitude on the boards then i don't have any, i did't think to record the conversations as they were happening.

But the impression i've got from the majority of players new and old in game is not that pa is crap or whatever, this however is the attitude that does come across a lot more strongly on these boards, and though you may not recognise it, what you say does have an impact on the perception of newer players reading these boards.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

And, why is the game itself not shit? I think if you read the boards a bit more carefully you will notice a lot of posts (split over various threads) outlining aspects of the current game which are simply broken (f.e. the galaxy system, stealing). If you want to say that this game grants fun for more than one round, please care to explain.

Also, in order to keep this thread somewhat on topic, maybe you want to open a new thread for that discussion or continue it in pm. Thanks.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

cynicism is simply the language of the mind. us older players have seen the game we came to and love warped into something else - and understandably we arent happy about it. you newer people didnt see what it was like before and so cant compare like we can. Consequently you dont understand why we arent happy given that current pa is all you have known.
Attracting new players is not a bad thing, but being unable to keep them is.
Such 'pateam sucks' type talk has existed ever since r1. its not a new thing.
When someone screws up, you should let them know that they have screwed up - otherwise they will continue on the path they started and make things worse, oblivious to the fact that its not popular.
as for 'the game is dying' - well, it is tbh. the player numbers are drastically down from what they once were.
There was a time when 6-10k+ paid accounts was the norm, nowadays they're lucky to scrape 1500 paid, and thats without mentioning the peak round in r3 of 180k accounts, but of which a lot were multis
Constructive criticism is ofc better then flaming, but then - is it really flaming if you are pointing out to pateam just how stupid they are being?
Isnt it better to let them know then it is to let them continue ?

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Yes, it is. And it's demoralising. You know that from experience so I'd expect a touch of respect towards adhering to your "constructive critcism" idea and providing ways to improve rather than continually calling us stupid.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

unjustified criticism, constantly is demoralising yes - I know that from experiance as you mention, however a lot of the recent criticism of how the game is developing as far as i can see is not unjustified.
There are very deep concerns over how things are progressing, and ive seen suggestions on some of the "complaining" threads as to how to fix it. Thats constructive criticism no?
and as for me - the last time i went on the deliberate offensive towards certain pateam members was when they made the monumental cockup regarding staff members and personal vendettas.
edit: though this line of conversation is detracting from the original topic

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Isn't this one of the jobs Jolt are supposed to pay a marketing expert for ?

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

A marketing expert would cost more than a coder - given that we can only just about afford part time coders, paying someone to be dedicated to marketing is out of the questions.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

I think id be a good role model to encourage more players for PA

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Apart from the fact you do not give off anything near the professionalism requirement that I imagine Kal would be looking for... No offense.

(judging by past forum posts only here.)

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

I am a much loved member of th community on irc. Forums are a different matter clearly :/

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

One thing is still not clear. Is there any form of salary, even minimal ?

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

If dont count personal satisfation and being able to put a smile on plenty of PA players then no. I imagine you may get a free credit though

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

Yes, I am sure we can manage a free credit per round.

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

an hour's work at Macdonals will get you a credit, don't do the marketing job, signup at your local maccy d!

Re: Wanted: Marketing Assistant
 

As sad as this may sound, it's about 1.3 hours over here :p