Prime 2014 Pin Quest Feedback
NowHiringHenchmen
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Registered User regular
in Pinny Arcade
So, since we already have a thread for the pin trading event and how it went/what could be improved, I thought instead of clogging it with more things, I would make this thread. Basically the same premise; of the pins needed for the "pin quest" this year, what did you find that was good, bad, needed improvement, etc etc. I'll start:
Good:
Bad:
Room For Improvement:
I'm sure most of you have different opinions on this, but I just thought fleshing my own out here would be good, and I'd love to hear everyone elses!
Good:
- Generally I am not a fan of the "play this game for this pin", but it seemed for the majority of the pins (Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony excluded), it wasn't actually too hard to get through these lines. Whether it be due to the giant amount of indie pins or something else, it just didn't seem as clustered as East.
- More sets! Personally, the more pins I can get in a shorter amount of time is always great, and the fact that WeLoveFine had 5 pins located in one nice, convenient (sort of) package was awesome. I hope this happens more frequently.
- Tiamat's distribution method was a HUGE improvement over last years way, and I hope they adopt this method if they choose to do any other pins of this type. It obviously caused a pretty big line, but as far as collecting goes, it was cake.
- The pin trading event was awesome! While it wasn't perfect, it was a great place to get a bunch of older pins, talk to the staff, AND boost your collection. 10/10 would trade again.
Bad:
- The Order: 1886. The Order: 1886. The Order: 1886. The Order: 1886. The Order: 1886. Just...why?
- While I wasn't around for the mayhem, I heard that Sunset Overdrive quickly went from a simple "stand in line and play" to "Get 1st place", which of course drops your chances to a staggering 1 in 8 chance of getting a pin. Of course, there were ways to circumvent that, but it's sad to see the originally announced way quickly blow up.
- It seems like every year, Blizzard is going to be the bane of someones pin existence. The lines were once again ridiculous, and rightfully so; they showed off a bunch of awesome games, it's just upsetting that they couldn't give us pins another way. Maybe a scavenger hunt? But no..because...
- The Next Level. Another pin that, as I believe @Frostbyte put it, was nearly impossible to do in one single day. To play all the demoes required, 90% of them being for heavily popular AAA titles, would have cost you at least a day and a half of line waiting.
Room For Improvement:
- The Next Level execution was pretty poor, but the idea was actually kind of solid. If PAX wanted to force traffic to other, obscurer areas, it would be pretty easy to use something like that to bring us to indie tables, or something that isn't already insanely popular and reward us with a pin.
- I doubt it'll ever happen, but it would be nice to see the guys from Pinny Arcade possibly collaborating with the vendors on how to distribute some pins. The Order (god..why?) pin was such a pain in the ass, and the Sunset/Blizzard/Next Level pins slowly turned into ones, that perhaps a second opinion on how to hand them out is needed for the future. The community is only getting bigger.
I'm sure most of you have different opinions on this, but I just thought fleshing my own out here would be good, and I'd love to hear everyone elses!
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Perhaps the PA folks could suggest the vendors peruse these threads for suggestions and tips on ideas to implement and/or avoid.
Pins!
When you walked out they had a table set up and someone gave you a poster, crown/mask and pin.
The biggest thing to me was that if you missed out on the Aquisitions game, there was another way to get it. You could go play a game of D&D
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I went after you playing a demo though…and you played it for like two minutes and then took the headset off and said you were done playing it. I think she was more shocked then anything when she stamped your book.
Instead of just standing in a line for a few hours you were actually playing games the whole time, and if you did it in the morning you were entered into the tournament & the prize drawing. The only bad line was the Shadow of Mordor and plenty of people figured out easy ways around that line.
The Order: 1886 was also a great idea to me. Having some pins be hard to get is great for the community. You had to decide between rolling the dice in line, or trying to trade for it.
The worst set up to me was the Sunset overdrive pin. They had their demo that you had to get 1st place in which is great to me, but they also had their photo booth over in the Paramount where they were giving the pin out like candy. They really should have had a sign at their demo booth letting people know about the paramount.
Sunset overdrive photo booth though ran out of pins on Saturday Early AM(around 10:30am I believe), and then you could only get them from the demo…so I don't see the negative on that personally.
They must have been restocked then, because I got one Saturday afternoon, Sunday, & another on Monday afternoon.
I never said I was a good person.
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The Next Level was easy. I did it legit the first time, but for a second pin, I got a guy from Corsair to stamp half of my book just because I didn't want to wait in lines again... then I got kicked off of Warframe so I made the girl stamp it, then I played a quick game of the Shield, etc.
The Order was the only bullshit one, but again I managed to get one just by talking to the dude at the end, so there's that. The demo sold me on the game, though if I didn't get the pin I'd probably not buy it out of spite... but I ended up with 3 of them so whatever!
tl;dr I didn't have much trouble with the Prime pins, everything was available, and I hate buying pins for $15 because that's too fucking much for nearly every god damn one.
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Would pay 15$ for transistor pin again. Also, I had to google "tl,dr".
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It comes down to booth management. Keep in mind that PA and PAX have zero say in booth layout, number of demo stations or anything like that. Booth designers are told the size and shape of the booth, and they do what they want. Statues, banners, all the eye-grabbing stuff that "takes up space" are going to be there because booth designers still have the E3 "look at me!" mindset.
The stuff that PA and PAX can handle:
Don't put high traffic booths near each other. This will prevent traffic jams, small booths benefit from rubbernecks heading to Blizzard, Sony, whomever.
Include plenty of space for queues. Queue capping doesn't work. You get people hovering and cutting in. I know you get people suggesting different ideas for how to handle queuing and most of the time it's too complex to invest in. So just have a larger space for queuing for the bigger booths.
Incentivise throughput. Or disincentivise the lack of it. 30 minute demos? 8 demo stations for a triple-A game? Why not charge them for the queue space? I'm not suggesting they cram people in like sardines, but there were many booths that you could look at the layout and see where better use of space would make for a more pleasant experience.
And throughput is the key to the last point, bringing it back to Pins. If a booth is giving away Pins, they need at least as many as they expect the throughput to be. Defense Grid 2 at Prime '13 had a wheel, yes. But their line was short enough that people could run it multiple times without impacting their Prime experience. I know that PA wants to be very hands-off in how they deal with 3rd party Pins, but some suggestions and guidelines could well help with making it a better promotion for both sides. A large part of that is making sure that attendees don't get frustrated by random chance, and vendors don't get overly hassled by those who have repeatedly run the booth and still come away without the Pin.
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At this year's PAX Prime, there were around 10 different ways to get pins. This was great, but I think that a few too many were just purchased. Having all of the staff in one place for the pin trading event was awesome, but it also took away a lot of the challenge.
- Get up really early to purchase (1 - 10 Year Anniversary)
- Donate to charity (1 - Tearaway)
- Purchase reward (1 - Merch 2.0)
- Purchase from booth (19)
- Trade with staff (15)
- Demo game (5 - Age of Empries, Garruk, ETC, Iron Horde, Moonrise)
- Demo game for a random chance (1 - The Order: 1866)
- Demo multiple games (1 - The Next Level)
- Win multiplayer demo (1 - Sunset Overdrive)
- Panel (1 - Tiamat)
- Photo Booth (2 - Age of Empires, Sunset Overdrive)
All in all, I thought the pin quest was pretty good. Except for The Order.
Do you work for Sony? You must work for Sony....
Will do. I'll probably continue to write stuff here though, so I can get everything out of my brain first and give them one coherent piece. I'm still mentally unpacking.
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This is an inaccurate statement, due to the fact that as people have already stated their distribution was random in that you got a pin if the booth staff liked you. It was not an unbiased mechanic like a die roll or a spinning wheel.
I want to say I disagree with this attitude, but I'm not sure? Without straying into politics, it feels like the core concept is "be angry when you have nothing, until you manage to (somehow) get something and then glorify the system that divides you from the people who still have nothing".
In general, I feel the crux is that when you're distributing a pin you need to be clear on what the conditions of getting said pin are. Personally, I feel lied to when information is posted online that states "play this demo, get this pin" and then when you're there it turns out that it's actually "create a cluster%*@!ed capped line, play this demo, and we'll give you a pin if we feel like it". For The Order specifically, they constantly shifted the terms of that promotion and were never up front about it. Day one, the rumor was that you got one for drawing a mustache that the guy giving you the shirts liked. This morphed into being rewarded for actually having a mustache that they thought was awesome. Then it was 1 out of 4 people get it, but later by watching their distribution it was apparent that was more a guideline and not a hard mechanic. They gave you a pin if you pretended to be their friend, they gave you a pin if they liked you for some reason.
TL;DR - there is nothing wrong with some limited pins, but exhibitors need to be clear on the conditions set to acquiring them.
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I think the distribution terms should be something they set before PAX starts, and that can be broadcast by PA when they do the PAX Pin reveal. The line caps...were fucked, and that is something that needs sorting. I can't think of anything other than more space (hah) and rearranging the booths so that high traffic ones aren't all together.
Increasing the minimum vendor print run is one that I will continue to push, mainly on the larger booths. Blizzard had around 3,000 of each this year according to various sources, and that seemed to be a good solid number for them. I suggest larger booths are steered in that direction also. Maybe 2,000 or 2,500 would be more comfortable for them, but I can imagine it wouldn't be hard to get them there. "Blizzard got 6,000 Pins in total, but then they aren't launching those games for a while. If yours is out soon maybe you need more, since you have a lot of enthusiasm for it..."
I'd be curious to know just how many Red Pins were sold, since that could end up being more popular than initially thought.
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Undead Labs is doing a similar type of thing with the Moonrise pins that they took back with them. If you're still looking for one of those, I think they started doing twitter giveaways. Either the Undead Labs account or the Moonrise promotional account.
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They were pretty vague, but specifically told me to "check out their twitter account for any new promotions", so it's likely they will do something similar.
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As someone who really really wants an excuse to throw money at their online store for Transistor stuff, I hope they change their mind
Pins!
But that does come with a risk of bitching from the Pin Community. Negative connotations of any type aren't what you want when doing a promotion.
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That being said, super freaking classy of Sony to give those to the Cookie Brigade imo, great way to boost their charity earnings.
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It's very common for companies to sell/giveaway pins they don't run out of at PAX.
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No way should two of them be considered a complete set. If I could have gotten two from last East, it would be the same equivalent.
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There are two kinds of Hardcore collector, at least that I know of. The first are just getting one of every Pin issued. The second type do the same, but feel that "year variants" are different Pins. So a Merch 2012 is different to them than a Merch 2013.
To both those groups, Iota was just one Pin. Iota 2014. Even if there was a reprint, it would be the same year.
Now, maybe there are not just Hardcore and Variant Hardcore, but Venue Hardcore, who would see it as two separate Pins. But that is a level which even I would not aspire to. The cost would be immense.
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