Can We Discuss the Merch Store?
I’ve discussed before that the prices for SSO are mostly astronomically high for the industry. And I still do believe that SSO would do a lot better with maintain a higher monthly player base if their fees weren’t as gouging to the wallet. But because it’s a business, I want to suggest a means to recoup some of those loses in the face of a big transition price drop like that, and also why the merch store really needs an overhaul.
As it stands, the current merch store is boring. There’s nothing on the store that says SSO on it. Most of the merchandise is just generic horse designs on shirts, which isn’t really intriguing, or it’s just Star Stable printed over a shirt or pillow. That’s lazy design, and it’s also kinda cocky. Imagine being so famous you just sold shirts with your name printed on them. A little egotistical, right? This is why most merch stores sell products with quotes from a podcast or plushes of adorable characters or cartoons of a show’s host doing something related to a popular video. It incorporates the creator(s), yes, but also the topics that the audience is listening or viewing or playing that content for. Not to mention this usually produces interesting designs that people outside the fandom can inquire about.
While there are some utility items on the store, there’s not much that I would buy on there. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t wear it in public as an adult. Horses in a heart is cute, but it’s also feels very age-gated. So there’s no reason for me to buy it. Then the rest of the merch is really just SSO’s logo on a shirt, which is super uninteresting. Why pay for a polo with a little icon for $30 plus shipping when I can buy one at Target for $10? The designs aren’t worth the price difference of buying a more practical shirt, and they aren’t big enough to represent any of the fun things I love about the game, like the story or the world or the characters.
So, what should SSO sell instead? Let’s start in clothing. I’ve said it half a dozen times by now, I’m sure, but what about those sweaters with the Soul Steeds on them? There’s a nice start. Or if SSO is gonna sell hats, sell Alex’s beanie. You might encourage someone to cosplay for the game. How about a shirt that says “I part-time as the Chosen One,” or a shirt that incorporates the Circles’ icons, or a pink shirt that says “I’m Pink Hell.” What if there were versions of popular holiday clothes that were on limited time sales during those holidays? Or what if there was another T-shirt contest, and the winners were put in the game and on the merch store? That would be so awesome!
SSO could easily move into the poster market. They have dozens of good designs. All of those wallpapers from the loading screens would make excellent posters. Or a stylized version of the map. Or any collection of artwork of the Soul Riders. Or versions of clothes with quotes on them like my two dumb suggestions above. How about a poster that says “Plan Your Trip To Jorvik/Plan Your Trip to Pandoria” on opposite sides?
There is a great variety of plushies SSO could have. All of the Soul Steeds, all of the Jorvik Wild Horses, the Soul Riders, Fripp, shadow seekers, popular NPCs like Steve. Some of these could even be printed as figurines supposing the devs found a good partner for producing them. I’d love to have a figurine of Aideen’s Harp or Aideen’s Light or our rune wand.
Then there’s the massive opportunity of the old CD-ROM games. These would probably need some time committed to them for porting and bug fixing, but I’d happily give up a map expansion this year in favor of these coming out again on digital. Talk about a cash cow. Even if people don’t play SSO, they can still play these games. And the devs stop losing money from people reselling the games on eBay, not to mention start making the lore more accessible to new enthusiastic fans. Not to mention the opportunity for a remaster of the games in SSO style graphics.
Then there’s the whole comics and books issue. I know SSO is made in Sweden, but their biggest audience is the US. It really makes very little sense to me why they haven’t had dual releases in Swedish and English for these things. It’s possible that the book simply didn’t make enough sales for a translation, or do well enough to garner the push, which is a shame. I would love to read it. I sincerely hope that going forward the devs try to make it a dual release, or even just have an ebook version available for purchase if they can’t get it in print.
All of these ideas in less than 30 minutes. It took me less than an hour to think of this whole list of better ideas for the merch store, a lot of which many of you have already been asking for. This goes back to two frustrations, I think. One, that SSO wants to be targeted towards girls and so there’s an overemphasis on “girly” clothes and designs and not enough focus on gamers, which is their real audience for their video game. Two, it’s a frustration with the fact that the devs refuse to even communicate with their audience and think they know what’s best for the company, exclusively. And maybe we don’t no perfectly what would be best for the company, but it sure would be nice to be able to talk to someone about it and not feel like the idea is just going to be canned after I say it.
I hope going forward the devs add more interesting designs to the store. I’ve said it before, I happily give these concepts up to the company if they were to implement them. I also hope that we see more community suggestions reaching the store, because there are some good ones, most of them better than mine.