@chime16622 We’re on the same page. It’s unclear who is on the Pressure team as of right now so we are working to figure out how we can get the charms removed from the game
@xinophen@avidsotuff I can't share just much but there definitely is plans for it to be a marketed update with a theme rather than just a one-off skin quest drop
I do think a shift to having more content in updates will naturally solve a lot of this too. Pigmas had a better marketing campaign because there was a lot to show off. The chapter, season, campaign rally, and the changes to the old maps. With a skin quest there's very few things you can show off without spoiling the steps so by naturally shifting away from doing skin quests so frequently and getting back into the habit of doing more content updates (such as seasons, LTMs, chapters, events) there will be more to build up and market.
I definitely do agree with this and have some personal thoughts and predictions as to what things could look like going forward (atleast from the I2R x TS side of things).
I'll open by looking at Pigmas back in 2024. I do think that it had a really good marketing campaign (which I think is how it managed to get above 100K CCU). Teasers, a trailer, an event page, and countdown icons. It was an update marketed for over a week without a delay when the release date/time was announced, and there was a very clear description of what would be included in the update in the trailer. Everyone knew it was coming in advance and they knew what was going to be inside of the update.
To run a marketing campaign like Pigmas though, you need to start it well before the update releases. otherwise you don't really have the time to build up a lot of hype. I've seen that this with recent updates has been difficult because internal deadlines haven't been met reliably, so with that, there's a very real risk of then starting marketing too early and having to stall/delay. As a result, there has been a shift to starting marketing when the update is ready and when that is the case, just releasing it as soon as possible to get started on the next. Usually this comes with an announcement of the date/time within 2 days of the release, so hardly enough time to do much building up.
With this said, I do think that the partnership with Tencell Studios would solve this problem. With I2R getting the help they need in producing their updates, internal deadlines would be met more reliably, and therefore marketing campaigns can be planned out reliably too. I do think I2R knows how to market an update well but just has not really done much thorough marketing because they haven't really had the means to.
So going forward my hopes are that we'll see updates being announced in advance with more teasers, clear details of what will be included, and in general more consistency in the marketing so people can feel when an update is near.
I want players to be excited when they see that Tencell Studios is partnering with a game.
For that reason, I’m excited to be working with Piggy again. I believe that there’s still so much potential in the game and with the support of the community, the talented team at i2R, and my colleagues at Tencell Studios, I’m confident we can help build a strong future that continues to honor and strengthen Piggy’s legacy.
This partnership is important to me, not only because of my past experience with Piggy, but because in these early stages of our studio it matters that we build our foundation alongside games that players genuinely care about. We want to earn trust the right way, and I’m glad to be doing that with Piggy.
I’m grateful to both i2R and MiniToon for the trust and opportunity they’ve given us here and I'm looking forward to share more with you all soon. 🙏