Update Rivals 2's Steam Presence#36
I want to preface this with I am not an expert at the game or with game marketing. I’m just a casual Gold player with 600+ hours on this game. I engage with the community through the Discord servers, and I’m on a personal mission to introduce as many friends and new players to try out the Rivals of Aether series. I like watching and playing this game competitively, I play climb Ranked every couple months, but it’s not my main focus. I mostly play offline and with close friends outside of this community. With that said, I hope you can see the merit in making this post. In my opinion, with the second anniversary of Rivals of Aether 2 approach, I think the Steam page needs a refresh for the following reasons.
Images and videos featured on the page are outdated.
The information prioritized on the page is focused on the wrong stuff.
Finally, I think Rivals 2 should put more effort into marketing its casual side. Maybe like a 75-25 or a 60-40 split between competitive and casual marketing.
First Point: I think the Steam page needs new videos and images. The ones currently used are the anniversary trailer, old character trailers and character interactions. Most of these don’t really show how the game has evolved in two years, so a new anniversary trailer would be really nice. Showing off both the growth of the competitive scene and the game’s casual appeal has gotten. Another video I think could be helpful, is a FAQ/Q&A/Starter Guide video led by Dan Fornace or another dev. The deep dive videos and roadmap videos on Youtube were nice since they served as their own Q&A’s. that new people who join the Discord frequently comment on. Stuff like “why is this game paid only to make me pay more for costumes?” Questions that the community will gladly answer, with new players usually feeling satisfied that paid costumes means we keep getting free DLC fighters, items, and modes. However the issue there is that those videos get lost between all the other videos the Youtube channel. So having ways for new players to quickly educate themselves on the game, what modes are available, workshop, why it’s monetized a certain way, where story mode is, the general roadmap for next year, and why there’s a bunch of negative reviews talking about some “floorhugging” could help catch new players up to speed. Also images that show the variety of game features and modes like 1 v 1 ranked, FFA’s on casual stages with items, 2 v 2’s, arcade mode, trials, and modifiers.
Second Point: As novel as the new mechanics to Rivals and the genre in general are, I don’t think it should be taking priority over important information like the deep move sets, Free character and game mode DLC in exchange for relatively friendly cosmetic monetization, items, casual stages, which are either not mentioned or hidden behind Read More tabs. Free fighter/game mode DLC and its casual content should be front and center, the game’s reputation as a competitive game is still strong, and should stay the priority. This is a platfighter made by competitive platfighter fans, for competitive platfighter fans. But this game has casual appeal that is not only strong, but should be marketed more over technical aspects that only us experienced platfighters will only understand. If other platfighters like Smash Bros and Brawlhalla are the kings of platfighter party games, Rivals of Aether 2 no doubt deserves to sit right alongside them with what it offers. Could use some more interesting items though.
Third Point: If it wasn’t already clear, my biggest motive for writing this is that I don’t think Rivals marketing is doing a great enough job at showing how fun its casual content really is. I’m more than aware that this game is mostly catered towards the competitive scene, but I have enough experience to know that we’re sitting on gold with this game. It’s an incredible party game. May be lacking with its item pool but otherwise, it really should be promoted more for it. I’ve been doing as much as I can to get friends who play a little bit or no Smash/Brawlhalla to try it out. They tend to be the kind of people who say things like “I don’t play fighting games, they’re too hard.” Or “I don’t play competitive games.” And “why are the reviews mixed?” which leads me to needing to explain that its about mechanics and balancing that many buyers like them aren’t going to engage with unless and we can turn off, unless they really want to learn the game competitively. But those comments start to disappear once we start getting FFA sessions going, which does hurt my wallet with needing to buy a couple copies… Gouie’s release has especially ignited interest within the communities I’m in. Amazing casual friendly character that you’d wish was there from the start to help get players more adjusted to the game.
I hope I got my points across well enough. If this post comes across as “casual cries that Rivals 2 isn’t casual enough,” then Iapologize for failing to explain properly. Rivals of Aether 2 is an amazing competitive game that should continue to embrace this identity. But as someone who’s seen people get turned away from buying this game due to believing fighting games are games for sweats, believing the devs are being greedy, seeing the game’s mixed reception, and seeing negative reviews about mechanics I’m certain many casuals will not know what it means or meaningfully interact with, I think the store and marketing for Rivals 2 could do a better job at showing at how fun and varied this platform fighter is. There is more than one way to play Rivals 2, and I personally think this game is, or at least has great potential to be fun for everyone. Except for when I fight Ranno though. :P
Also here’s the Reddit version of this write up. https://www.reddit.com/r/RivalsOfAether/comments/1x05gty/rival_2_needs_to_update_its_steam_presence/
Biggest thing for me is that worshop release was explosively good for rivals 1, they should sponser some old workshop content creators and see if they can’t reignite that rush. Or not, idk, but I do think the workshop mode is a good place for marketing because of how casual friendly it can be.