Hi everyone who worked on this: Great job, the map is pretty cool and is functioning great. From a developmental success standpoint, ya'll did great
With that being said, this was a horrendous idea. It's just terrible practice to randomly shove out a new server.
Here's what I mean: Imagine if a company said literally nothing, did no market research, didn't ask their customers what they want, didn't build any hype, didn't reach any new groups - and then released a brand new product, let's call it the "Gooky Gook".
Think about how the product would likely fail, and why.
First of all, did anyone even ask for the Gooky Gook? There needs to be a basic "pain" point or demand for the product/service. In the server's case, perhaps the pain point is that US players have too high ping, but from what I could see #1 The pain isn't significant enough to mandate a new server and #2 There's only like 10 active US players. Also the way in market research to identify "pain" points is to interview the consumer, which I don't think happened.
So let's pretend that the idea behind the Gooky Gook was a market expansion, they thought if they offered a new product - they would gain a new share of the market. So that's a fair idea, but why wouldn't the company tell anyone? A MASSIVE part of expansion into a new market is #1 Identifying the right product to sell if it even exists, and then #2 Building an effective campaign that targets the new market. I think it's obvious where the US server idea messed up, again - no one actually talked to anyone about the idea... Secondly, where is the hype train, where is the content marketing, where is the outreach, where is promotion. You didn't even reach out to your current US server base to ask for assistance, I mean that's just a waste.
Now envision this one, the Gooky Gook is ready to launch - but ABSOLUTELY no one knows about it. One group of 10 people in the company of over 10,000 people developed this product. But they decided to tell no one, not even their lower-ranking co-workers, or most importantly their consumers. Then BAM, the Gooky Gook is out! Everyone go buy my product, it's a wonderful new and awesome product. Everyone is going to look at them and say "I've never heard of it" "Why would I buy that" "I didn't even ask for this product". In the US server, perhaps you guys should have considered actually working with the community.
To the above point, I find it ironic that Limelight Gaming is more strict on confidentiality than about 90% of actual businesses trying to develop new products. But that's fine - I mean I think it's dumb personally, especially when your consumer is literally integrated into your community, but it's a way to operate. But look at Apple, extremely secretive about product development, but then there's a HUGE reveal and they start shoving hype and content down everyone's throat, and they have a whole R&D and Marketing process beforehand to ensure that the product is what people actually care about.
Anyway, that's why the server has 2 people on, and will likely fail. There's still potentially hope if you can pivot, but it's going to be much harder now than it was a few months ago. That's about as constructive as I can get, sorry if it sounds harsh but it's the reality.
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PS: Feel free to reach out to me personally for potential solutions, I'm happy to discuss.
