Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Power of Fan Community

Hi Everybody, Pavel here, reporting about my trip to Scania truck plant in the city of Södertälje, Sweden, this weekend.

It was a fun trip, seeing all the gorgeous trucks during an Open Day event in the factory, and watching the final round of Scania Young European Truck Driver competition. (Check out the replay of the finals and admire the skill required of a real truck driver! http://scania-yetd.creo.tv/150425/scania_yetd_final_event_2015)

It was a visit I would no doubt consider worth covering here on the blog, but this alone may not make me write a blog post on a Sunday evening.

I've had a real eye opening moment this weekend, realizing how much we depend on the fan community to have cool things happening to our company and to our games...

Here is the latest example: There is a young man living in Södertälje who is a huge fan of a certain youtuber and streamer known as Squirrel, and as it also happens of Euro Truck Simulator 2. This young man, let's call him Kilian, was the catalyst who put in motion a series of events which ended up in Scania's marketing department issuing official invitation for Squirrel to come to the YETD finals to show his skill driving Scania trucks in our game (and actually driving real trucks at Scania Demo Centre!). Things snowballed from there, our Scandinavian publishing partner Wendros offered to help and show the game at the event - big thanks Johan for all the hard work! - and I was invited to come and help present the new Scandinavia DLC. As a result, hundreds of visitors of the event, adults as well as kids, got a chance to sit behind the steering wheel - also thanks to John at Nordic office of Logitech who donated five brand new G27 wheels - and to try out the new map add-on in a world premiere in the public.

I've heard a lot of praise as well as some constructive critique about what we were showing, admittedly it was a bit of an ego-booster experience, but there was more happening that none of us really expected.

Crowds were pouring in to see the game and to meet Paul in the flesh. The announcement of his visit to Scania on his YouTube channel attracted fans from as far as Switzerland, Germany or Ireland, not to speak about a ton of his Swedish fans. There was a queue that lasted like 2 hours of people asking for an autograph or selfie together with Squirrel, numerous people even bringing presents for him for his upcoming birthday.

I was wondering, is it really possible that something as trivial as a computer game can be so powerful to induce so much emotion, to create friendships, to spark new businesses, to change people's lives? We must have done something right to have this happening to our little Euro Truck Simulator 2!

It's definitely a strong inspiration to keep our commitment to the community, to continue improving and expanding the game. Thank you guys and gals!

If you are a fan of Squirrel or just curious what this youtube and streaming phenomenon is all about and how it can fire up the imagination of so many truck sim fans, I suggest you head to Squirrel's twitch channel immediately to watch his regular Sunday Night Trucking programme LIVE at this very moment. This time it's a special show I understand (birthday and all), and SCS has chipped in too with some very unique Steam keys for giving away in a raffle. Youtubers and streamers are a big factor contributing to continuing success of our game by attracting new players to it; there are hundreds and thousands of them out there, but Paul and his audience is really something unique.

Below are some images from my trip and from the event and the game show...





42 comments:

  1. those Swedish girls are so cute! :D
    congrats on the event and stuff!

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  2. wish I was there lol a Swedish girl posing on my truck would be perfect lol

    glad you enjoyed yourself and I bet it was a fantastic opportunity to be part of the event.

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  3. Wish I'd been there as well :).Will there be other places like the Scania factory. For example an Iveco factory in another city somewhere. Thanks. Also it would be great for you to add distances to the road signs e.g.
    ^
    Manchester 16
    Birmingham 20
    >
    Liverpool 30

    It would also be great to add northwestern Scotland , it's really stunning and northern Wales. It would be perfect thanks so much. :)

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  5. Really came close to going to see you guys but couldn't due to last min probs. So gutted, looked really good :(

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  6. Please add Ireland to the game. Also Squirrel is the best twitch streamer ever.

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  7. I was like twenty centimeters from you squirrel! But I forgot to take a picture! I wish I did. :(
    I'm from Södertälje by the way. :)

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  8. Really came close to going to see you guys but couldn't due to last min probs. So gutted, looked really good :(

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  9. I really like your high level in Engliš , Pavel.

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  10. Honorable Pavel and his colleagues scs, if You please, work about lorry truck SCANIA. I beg You verymuch. repair the mistakes of this truck!

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  11. Well its all good but you REALLY need to add some advanced things (that you actually had already in 18WoS:AA):

    * REAL COMPETITION! Let there be other truckcompanies in the game that fight for the loads, that dump the prices or something. Let us see skinned complete truck and trailers with made up companynames on them (like Smiths Transportation). Let us build our company and when our company is big enough we can actually buy a whole AI company and grow even bigger!

    * Let us focus on ONE SPECIFIC load and buy that specific trailer. I.E. if we want to focus on only heavy loads we buy a lowloader, if its LTL-loads then we buy only a curtainsider, if its frozen food, we buy a coldstorage-trailer.

    * Let us "sign" freightpapers! If we forget to do it when accepting the load, we get delayed, fined and loose reputation!

    * Let us "load" or own stuff. Let us backup with our own trailers to a dock and then you can have a "loading screen" or whatever (prefferably a forklift or suitable thing to load the trailer).

    PLEASE, the game needs to be "deeper"! Try to implement it for ETS2, if not atleast for ATS!

    Thanks for your hard work, has been with you and bought all games since the first one!

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    Replies
    1. +1 we need things like that, and for sure a lot more, like winter.

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  12. I think they forgot to post about ATS ? been a while...AGAIN :/

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  13. The boss must be very tired, this entry has a lot more grammatical mistakes than his other posts (which usually have next to none). :D

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  14. Nice blog there Pavel - yer derserve it just as much as paul does, and thanks for a splended game!

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  15. Congratulations guys you are great !

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  16. Squirrel is an ignorant douche bag, I can't say much more about him other than that. You know how many kids hate Renault because mr squirrel thinks renault is shit compared to the oh so might Scania.....


    Fun fact I work at a place where quite a trucks load and unload, and 3 times I had to pull a truck away from the loading docks because it broke down, guess what brand that truck had? 3 times Scania.
    My friend is head of a small trucking company with a few Scania trucks, do you know how expensive parts are on scania trucks? Well... Quite expensive.... Do you know Scania dealerships replace for example plastic bumpers with a cheap brand and charge the price of the original?

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    Replies
    1. Don't be so butthurted Renault.

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    2. "do you know how expensive parts are on scania trucks? Well... Quite expensive.... Do you know Scania dealerships replace for example plastic bumpers with a cheap brand and charge the price of the original?"

      Congratulation, you said obvious. Scania belongs to Volkswagen Group, which is well know for such things like you said. Any other automotive company under Volkswagen does the same, Scania is no except. But hey, we are in game so this doesnt apply so why not just enjoy the game?

      And i think Squirrel is fine guy, i enjoy his videos

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    4. Since Renault is owned by Volvo, Volvo focus more on thier own trucks and Renault becomes more like a cheap brand. Here in Sweden, we don't usually se Renault trucks, unless they are from Poland or something like that (no offence). I think that's because Swedish companies buys trucks that are top of the line like Scania, Volvo and Mercedes. I read an article about the best Euro 6 truck and the best was Scania, Volvo and Mercedes. DAF wasn't so bad either. That is why I think Squirrel says that Reanult is crap. Of course Renault isn't crap, just a little cheaper than other brand.

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  17. Nice meeting both of you guys in Södertälje! Seems like you had a great stay, with good lookin trucks and nice people, i know i did! Hope you make it a tradition, to visit this great event! Keep up the great work, and see you again!!!

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  18. I wish we had official multiplayer :(

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  19. These are some good looking trucks. It would be really sad if some of them were to break down when they were out on the road. And even worse if those breakdowns caused some kind of damage to the truck. A little mechanical problem can be managed. Especially if you are somewhere where you can call a mobile repair guy to come and fix the problem. http://www.clenterprises.org

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  20. Need some news about ATS here...

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  21. SCS care so much for this game ETS 2 that he forgot the we the people wants the release of AMERICAN TRUCK SIMULATOR we are tired of waiting for so long i guess he doesn't care for want the rest of the world wants we want a new truck game you don't want to make more money or is you want is to make ETS 2 perfect which is getting better but stop acting stupid scs and release AMERICAN TRUCK SIMULATOR all ready and everybody will be happily ever after ok ;)

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    Replies
    1. I would not expect rapid implementation of ATS. SCS wrote in one of their post that do not will release the game without getting all the licenses from truck manufacturers. In another post they wrote that getting a license may take years. I feel that it will be at least a year or two. Sooner I expect to release the bus simulator, either, though I begin to doubt it too rigid truck.

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  22. Me too if im going to pay for a game i want a disk in my hands not some download and a promise from steam that my game will always be there. Go to hell SCS!!! don't wanna play your games no more. Yes punn intended.

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  23. Let me get this right so scs wants people to buy there box version with only a peace of paper inside? they can go to hell along with anyone who supports this crap.

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  24. Good afternoon my name is António Ferreira'm from Portugal / Lisbon and got the Eurotruck simulator game, I wonder if there is a map of Portugal and Spain in some original your update,
    if there is no I wonder if there is any prediction they include Portugal and Spain to the game as these two countries together form the Iberian peninsula and belong to Europe. these two countries have for the game but are not originals are other people who make them to be able to play throughout Europe.
    is I want to buy the maps and updates an original way since I bought the game, it's all original and also the maps or mods that are not original do not give to play in multiplayer mode

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  25. Please tell me something about the maps of Portugal and Spain today got the scandinavian pack by steam and I'm loving your product'm waiting for news thanks for the attention and congratulations for the great game

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