Game Design as Marketing: Business/Game Developer's Dilemma

Game design as marketing: Business/game developer’s dilemma Juho Hamari @ GAS Seminar 2.3.2010

Juho Hamari – M. Sc. (Econ) Researcher @ HIIT Information System Science / eBusiness Scope: Business models related to selling virtual goods

Our game is
not big enough to be sold in a box
too big to be sold in a box
What then is our business model?
15cm 10cm

Willingness-to-pay Problem with flat pricing models: How can we meet the WTP

Let’s sell in-game artefacts!

Virtual goods Microtransactions

Differences in main b.models Degree of integration between game and biz design Revenue model Service design emphasis Marketing emphasis Pricing Customer relationship emphasis Retail Large amount of initial content Advertising Single price Acquisition Subscription Long-term engagement of users Time-based Retention “ free-to-play” / Virtual good sales Monetisation through incentivising service design Creating demand via game mechanics Microtransactions - emphasis on meeting the willingness-to-spend by price discriminating Acquisition, retention, monetisation

You…
Amass in-game wealth
Make new friends
Generate content
Keep coming back everyday?

You are locked in, literally
Lock-in: You are too deep into the game
Loss aversion: You don’t want to loose your hard earned stuff
You don’t want to be left behind…
… you pay up.

Tempting to make players end up in jail more frequently -> $$$

Not especially fun…
Not fair for non-paying users?

Dilemma #1: How to balance between:
Aggressive marketing VS Fun
Monetization VS Retention
Selling stuff VS balancing the in-game (virtual) economy
No silverbullet – monitor, adjust, iterate to maximise both

OH NO!! MUDFLATION! – ECONOMIC CRISIS

Faucet -> Sink
Sink stuff out
Decay
Consumables
Repair costs
Etc
Not fun either?

Dilemma #2: How to balance between:
Paying customers still wanting to get their money’s worth
Non-paying customers still wanting to fare in the game

Evening out the playfield between paying and non-paying customers
Separated games for spenders and non-spender
Matchmaking
Separated servers (ZT Online)
Get things a lot easier, only a bit later (monetising early adaptors and novelty value)
Make it easier for losers (No one cares if noobs get a bit helped)
Enabling trade between earned and bought content

Abstracting functions of items (KartRider)
Not selling performance related items
Selling functionality (convenience) – makes the gamplay easier and less time consuming
Selling only aesthetic items

Thank you

References:
Pictures:
Slides 3-20 - by Mark Strozier: http://www.flickr.com/photos/r80o/sets/40318/
Slide 21 – by twenty_questions: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twenty_questions/2888453842/
Slide 22 – by mellyjean: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mellyjean/3200035895/
Slide 23-25 – by alles-schlumpf: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487767@N02/3288942594
Slide 27: Wikipedia commons

http://virtual-economy.org	745
http://www.virtual-economy.org	87
http://infiniteunity3d.com	85
http://perceptionant.posterous.com	47
http://www.slideshare.net	29
http://futureplayproject.wordpress.com	13
http://virtual-economy.com	9
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	7
http://marveloper.com	5
http://www.virtual-economy.net	3
http://www.virtual-economy.com	3
url_unknown	2
http://paper.li	2
http://thegamersphere.com	1
http://www.netvibes.com	1
http://localhost	1
http://amazon.springnote.com	1
http://virtual-economy.net	1
http://feeds.feedburner.com	1
http://www.fogonthetyne.co.uk	1
http://static.slidesharecdn.com	1

Game Design as Marketing: Business/Game Developer's Dilemma

by Juho Hamari on Mar 03, 2010

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Game Design as Marketing: Business/Game Developer’s Dilemma — Presentation Transcript