IntroductionComputers and video games have developed so much since the days of first games as well as the people who play them. Nowadays video games are plaid by players of all ages and backgrounds all over the world. the computer and gaming industry in US alone has recorded a 10. 5 billion profit with such ammounts of money at stake the competition at this market is fierce, everynoe is struggling for their place under the sun. And all of the major game developers are spending huge ammounts on advertising.
With modern technologies most of developers can create in tehcnical terms identical products, and marketing (advertising) is only thing that diferentiates them. Marketing is not only engaged in advertisments, banners, exhibitions or trailers, it is already in built in the products themselves Each of the major game producers are aiming for their particuar audience, some aim for more or less everyone, others for teenages, others for adults and so on. As a result game developers are usually keeping some of the games visual aspects quite simmilar in all of their games.
So that the customer who found one game enjoyable would at a later time recognize the same visuals at other gameproducts and for business-tobusiness product) . This is only one of the many ways of how the companies promote their products. Another example would be the biggest gaming exhibition in the world E3 or as it was called Electronic entertainement expo, which for the first time started in 1995. every year since then, game developers, computer producers, and everyone who is any way engaged in gaming industry can be found under one roof in a massive marketing event where everyone presents their new products and inventions.
Online advertising got its start in the early 1990s. In the year 2012 the e3 had connected 45. 700 industry personel, generated 30. 000 hotel bookings and earned the city around 40million usd. Throughout my work i will write how the marketing developed in the game industry, from simple advertisments and posters, to the massive exhibitions connecting millions of gaming fans. Relevance of the topic It is a very sensitive topic on how to make people get involved in game industry and how to make people buy computer games
In this project I am speaking exactly about the game industry, the main question is do these companies need to change their marketing strategies in order to acquire new people in the gaming sector Research problem There is a wide range of choosing the method how you can position your company. In this project I am interested it the game industry as a whole . It is very interesting for me to analyse is it worth for a game developer to change its marketing priorities in order to get new segment of people .
Also it is very important for start ups, to understand different ways that a game developer can enter the market. Secondly, I am interested and I have some aims to open a Game Development company, that’s why it is important for me to make a research if how this market segment responds to the newcomers and what is the competition , and how to get people attracted to your type of games . Research objectives To learn about the market of the game industry. To see what are the buying habits and how people behave in the segment . Also to see the buying power in the industry of today.
Research process The marketing research process has been described as a set of anywhere from 6 to 11 standardized stages. It is defined as an information research process that consists of four distinct yet interrelated phases that have a logical, hierarchical ordering: (1) determination of the research problem, (2) development of the appropriate research design, (3) execution of the research design, (4) communication of the results. METHODOLOGY To be able to answer the research questions: Is it worth for brands to advertise in the socialmedia? , I have decided to use mixed metodology.
First of all, to anwer the research questions I have used survey mothodology adressing. In order to get reliable survey in order to analyze real factors, I have conducted a pre-research-focus group about how advertisments in social media impacts to buy. Pre-research In order to conduct the focus group that would help with the survey design, I invited young people aged 18-25 to participate in a discussion about their experience by impacts made by game industry. The proposed amount of people to be participating ranged from 6 to 10 people as advised by research literature.
Such amount of people is most benefiacial in order to gain diversity of answers and still allow every participant to express his or her opinion. The main reason for such an approach was to find more deep and emotional explanations on how youth views their game experience and which criteria they think about when deciding when buy a game and by what factors they are convinced to do so. Using focus groups in contrast to interviews allowed looking at opposing views and discussing those views allowed finding the true opinions of different people.
Main Research design The questionnaire that respondents had to fill in was asking to evaluate different methods of brands and genres impacts, what social media they have visited and rate their overall agreement or disagreement with statements about various attributes advertising in social media. The factors were mainly discussed in the setting of game marketing management and gave valuable insights in what considerations have to be taken into account in order for the game dev. to be successful, attract customers and increase customer loyalty.
Questions for survey were designed using ordinal scale questions about consumers and how they see impacts for themselves to purchase games. These questions were mainly constructed according to pre-research focus group findings. The survey also contained demographic and socio-economic data to ensure specific measurable differences in characteristics of different consumers. The research design serves as a master plan of the methods and procedures that should be used to collect and analyze the data needed by the decision maker.
Determining the most appropriate research design is a function of the information research objectives and the specific information requirements. In this master plan, the researcher must consider the type of data, the design technique (survey, observation, experiment, etc. ), the sampling methodology and procedures, the schedule, and the budget. Although every research problem is unique, most research objectives can be met by using one of three types of research designs: exploratory, descriptive, causal. 1] Descriptive Research design Because my aim of the research is to find out the characteristics of the existing situation thats why i will use the descriptive design of the research. Descriptive research uses a set of scientific methods and procedures to collect raw data and create data structures that describe the existing characteristics (e. g. , attitudes, intentions, preferences, purchase behaviors, evaluations of current marketing mix strategies) of a defined target population or market structure.
Descriptive research designs are appropriate when the research objectives include determination of the degree to which marketing (or decision) variables are related to actual market phenomena. Here, the researcher looks for answers to the how, who, what, when, and where questions concerning different components of a market structure. Descriptive studies generally allow decision makers to draw inferences about their customers, competitors, target markets, environmental factors, or other phenomena of concern. This research includes such a methods of gathering data as: • Survey • Focus group • Observation Case study methods Sourse of data I will use a primary data in my coursework,because I need to analyse the existing characteristings in my market segment ir order to make some conclusions. Primary data consists of observing or through surveys. I am using few type of the surveys: in-depth survey, questionnarie and discussing with the focuss group. Primary research entails the use of immediate data in determining the survival of the market. The popular ways to collect primary data consist of surveys, interviews and focus groups, which shows that direct relationship between potential customers and the companies.
Whereas secondary research is a means to reprocess and reuse collected information as an indication for betterments of the service or product. Both primary and secondary data are useful for businesses but both may differ from each other in various aspects. Primary data is more accommodating as it shows latest information. [2] Sampling plan A sampling plan is the blueprint or framework needed to ensure that the raw data collected are representative of the defined target population. Agood sampling plan will include, at least, the following steps: (1) define the target population, 2) select the data collection method, (3) identify the sampling frames needed, (4) select the appropriate sampling method, (5) determine necessary sample sizes and overall contact rates, (6) create an operating plan for selecting sampling units, (7) execute the operational plan. Questionnaire design To simplify the questionnaire development process, we present the flowerpot approach. This scientific approach involves a series of activities that have a logical, hierarchical order, which looks like that: Flowerpot approach:[3] Data selection method
First of all to help my self what topics to use in my course work I made this kind of the table: Topics So, in my course work I had to use 3 types of data collection methods, they are: in-depth survey, focus group and questionnaire. I have started with in-depth survey. In-depth interviewing is usually done at the beginning of a major research project, when you will be studying a population that you have never researched before. In-depth interviews – also called “semi-structured interviews”, or “informal interviews” – are very different from survey interviews.
They are much more similar to journalistic interviews. [4] In-depth interview: Me: How often do you play video games( in a week )? Respondent: Usually I play when I got spare time from work and studies sometimes I don’t play at all the whole week or more and sometimes I play everyday. Me: Where do you often buy your games? Respondent: if I am buying a game I buy it from online shops or e-bay. Me: And when i asked how does this brand convinced you to like it? Respondent: After I bought first clothes from that shop and I adore the quality, style, even the smell of the strictness.
Thay have fashionable clothes, attractive atmosphere in the shop and a great service. Me: Which game developers game did you buy last ? Respondent: last game I bought was guildwars2 from Ncsoft. Me: And when i asked how does this game dev convinced you to like it? Respondent: well they hey had really nice reviews about the game, in addition to this they have introduced something new, and as they said something that will change the future of gaming, and this got me on their hook. Me: How it satisfies your expectations? Respondent: well they delivered everything they were bargaining for.
Me: what you would prefer to choose real game or downloaded ? Respondent: I would prefer real game cd since usually downloaded games have limited number of downloads, and after you use them you cannot download the game any more unless you pay again. Me: Approximately how much money you spend on games per year ? Respondent: depending on the year but lets say ~300Lt Me: Does the services and extra content of the game is important for you? Why? Respondent: it is. The games now are usually quite short and some addition to it for free is always a nice feature.
Me: What is the most important factors for you in games ? Respondent: good story line, convenient controlls, online content is preferable Me: What game developer do you like the most? And why ? Respondent: it would be hard to name just one but probably bethesda since they are always delivering games of exquisit quality. Me: Do you buy this game developers games online ? Respondent: no i prefer hard copies Me: How does you favourite game developer advertises? Respondent: their own websites, banners in gaming websites, reviews, posters
Me: What type of advertising or strategy to attract people do you like most ? Respondent: i prefer fun, brief video content without too much talking, just getting straight to the point Findings of the in-depth interview As you can see the person which was responding is very into gaming, we can make some notes, that he likes more real games than the downloaded ones, but the main idea that he is getting the inspiration to buy from the reviews , ads and gossips that are published in social media, except his favourite method of advertising is good looking trailer of the game and its gameplay .
Also we can see that he spends not a small amount of the money for the clothes.. Although he would prefer real games in hand rather than same downloaded game. Focus group interview Small number of people (usually between 4 and 15, but typically 8) brought together with a moderator to focus on a specific product or topic. Focus groups aim at a discussion instead of on individual responses to formal questions, and produce qualitative data (preferences and beliefs) that may or may not be representative of the general population. 5] First of all we were tought that were is a need to call the respondents before making the correct group, this means targeting the population. Thats how my telephone screening looks like: Respondent‘s Name: _________________________ Date: ___________________ Mailing Adress: _________________________ Phone: __________________ _________________________ Cell: ____________________ (city) (State) (Zip code) Fax: _____________________ Hello, my name is ________________, and I‘m calling for the Marketing Resources Group in vilnius, Lithuania.
We are conducting a short interesting survey in your area and would like to include your opinions. The Marketing Resources Group is conducting a study on gaming habits of people in your metropolitan area and I would like to ask you a few questions. The questions will take less than two minutes. Let me begin by asking…. 1. Are you interested in gaming? o Yes (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) o No (CONTINUE) 2. Have you been reading the news about the games in past week? o Yes (CONTINUE) o No (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) 3.
Are you working in the game development segment ? o Yes (CONTINUE) o No (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) 4. Are you currently employed full-time or part-time outside the home? o Full-time (CONTINUE) o Part-time (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) o Not currently employed (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) 5. Please stopme when I come to the age category to which you belong. o Under 18 (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) o 18 to 25 (RECRUIT AT LEAST 12) o 26 to 35 (RECRUIT AT LEAST 12) o 36 to 45 (RECRUIT AT LEAST 12) Over 45 (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) (PARTICIPANT RECRUITMENT PART – READ BY INTERVIEWER) (Mr. , Mrs. , Ms. ) (Person‘s Last Name Here), the Marketing Resources Group (MRG) is sponsoring a meeting with people, like yourself, to discuss performing arts programs and events. We understand that many people are busy yet enjoy attending performing events and have opinions about different topics concerning game industry developement. We would like you to join a group of people, like ypurself, to discuss and get your opinions about some game development topics.
This is not a game presentation, but strictly a reasearch project. The group will meet on Wednesday evening, March 8th, at our office, in the old town in Vilnius. We would like you to be our guest. The session will start promptly at 18:30 p. m. , there will be refreshments, and the session will be over 20:00 p. m. Those people who participate will receice 50 Lt as our token of appreciation for participating in this important discussion session. Will you be able to attend? o Yes (CONFIRM NAME, ADRESS, PHONE/CELL, AND FAX NUMBERS) o No (THANK FOR THE PERSON AND TERMINATE AND TALLY) If YES), I will be sending you a letter and information in a few days confirming the meeting and your participation. If you have any questions or need to cancel, please telephone our office at (865421553). On behalf of MRG, thank you and have a pleasant (day or evening). [6] My focus group interview consisted of 10 people, some of them where interested in games as a fun segment, some of them in game developement. I have prepared few discuss questions for my focus group and we tried to answer them. People were feeling very comfortable, they didn’t scare to speak.
So my introducing question was: • From your viewpoint how gaming experience changed over the past 5 years? Most of the respondents told that it has changed dramatically from being just a simple game you buy at the store and playing through it once to getting a game online and after finishing the game getting new free content unlocked . Men told, that gaming experience has changed , gaming habits changed and also the buying experience of the games changed No one told that it makes negative impact for the customers, only big opportunities to change the gaming industry to a better . Then I asked what type of impact advertising makes for a game. A lot of people said only about the online aspect , as though in Lithuania , gaming industry is pretty weak an nobody invests money into offline advertising . Also one guy added that she would give the priority for the particular game developers official page, you can visit it whenever you are ready to buy, not every day you search the game websites for an opportunity to buy something • Third question was how does the social media make an impact for them to buy?
Of course men told that social media do impact them to buy, they go to buy clothes then they need to buy something and that they use social media for another reasons. 4 ladies told that social media realy makes the impact to buy the clothes, because brands are suggesting the styles for every weeks day, and they see something what they like and then they look more deeply to the brands offers, or they decide to go to that shop to look threw. • The last question that i have asked was what can be done with buying factor , maybe they have some new ideas to change the buying process or make buying in a different way?
One of them told that where too many different people, thats why the company cannot choose only one way to make buying process, that the same brand will have customers who don’t like to buy games online , P2P , who just will carry on downloading games, or buying in the local shops. The main idea of his mind was that every clever game developer should have different buying opportunities , plus a package of free downloadable contents. Most of them thinks that buying online is the best option so far ,because of the fast and convenient way to get your product , making a customer satisfied .
Questionnarie The aim of a questionnaire is to gather information for purposes of research for market surveys, analysis or even to corroborate other research findings. [7] They are one of the cheapest and most feasible ways of gathering data. It is important to remember that for any questionnaire to be really effective it has to be designed well. A sample questionnaire can help you formulate a good questionnaire. The standard questionnaire design is a set of questions with fixed alternatives. These alternatives could be dichotomous (having only two options e. g. es/no), multiple options or rank scaling, etc. All the readers need to do is tick the most appropriate answer according to them. This part of the method selecting is one of the most effective to make findings about the partocular market phenomena. I have been using network www. apklausa. lt, where I have puted my questionnarie, you can find it by using this link: http://apklausa. lt/f/marketing-development-in-game-industry-7w22y83/answers/new. fullpage I will put my questionnarie here from the online page. So this is how my questionnarie looks: 1. Your gender? a) Male ) Female ( go to 16 quest. ) 2. Enter your age . 3. Do you play computer games ? a) Yes b) No c) 4. How often do you play computer games ? a) Once a week b) Less then once a week c) 2-3 times a week d) Every day 5. How much time do you spend for your average gaming session?? a) Less than 1 hour b) 2-3 hours c) 4-6 hours d) More than 7 hours 6. What gaming consoles do you use ( you can select more than one) a) PC b) Xbox c) PlayStation d) Nintendo e) Mobile Phone f) Others 7. What type of games do you usually play ? ( you can select more than one) a) First Person Shooter ) Role Playing Game c) Massively multiplayer online role playing game d) Strategy e) Action – Adventure f) Multiplayer online Battle Arena g) Sports h) Puzzles i) Fighting j) Others 8. With whom do you usually play with? a) Alone b) Friends which i personally know c) Friends i met online d) Strangers e) Family 9. Mark the Game Developers you know or heard of . a) Bethesda b) EA c) Activision d) Blizzard e) Namco-Bandai f) Square-Enix g) Rockstar h) Riot i) Konami j) Valve k) Rovio l) Eidos m) Sega n) Sony computer entertainment o) Naughty Dog p) 2k games q) Epic Games 10.
Where do you usually get your games ? a) Buy in stores b) Buy online c) Rent d) Download 11. How much money do you spend on games per year ? a) I dont spend money on computer games b) Less than 100 Lt c) 100-200Lt + d) 300-400Lt + e) More than 400Lt 12. What are the most inportant factors in the game? (You can select more than one option) a) Graphics b) Story c) Creative Idea d) Online Content e) Free Services f) Developer 13. Where do you get information about upcoming games ? ( you can select more than one option) a) Magazines b) Gaming Websites c) Social Networks d) TV e) Friends f) Other 14.
When trying to improve school /work performance , it would be a great idea if video game companies : a) Offered academic lessons as a part of video game package b) Gave out free items to high performing students c) Monitor young kids time online d) Limited the amount video game could be played a day 15. Did gaming influence your life ? If so , how ? (Open-ended question ) Fieldwork In this research the followong questions were answered: • What are the buying habits in the game industry ? • What are the most important factors for the game dev to be successful? • How advertisments impacts customer to buy?
In order to answer the questions a questionnarie was developed and via help of online surveying 84 respondents. After initial data set preparation and descriptive statistics, the overall picture of the data was developed. It is also important to note at this stage that factors did not change significantly after the focus group discussion with a few items being excluded and a few included and we can conclude that overall the literature review was appropriate and outlined the most important aspects that drive satisfaction. The first factor was to analyze the PURPOSE of the game industry sector.
The second factor named GAMING ADVERTISING , consists of questions concerning case of impacts of the games on the lives of the people. The next factors BRANDING and it includes such a questions as how people feel about particular game developers, how are they important for them. Also there was a factor to determine the behaviuor of customer when buying games, such as BUYING HABITS. It considered do people likely to buy only online or in stores, how much do they spend on games, is it important from where do they buy and do they buy in general. The dependent factor – IMPACT of advertisments, who makes customer to buy or not.
I wanted to see if media has any posiibility to attract more often customers to buy when advertising in all the types of media. Discussion Now i will try to give you short description of the anwers. The first question was about the gender so the results where as follows : 46% of all the respondents were females . Male formed a 51% and others didnt answer the question Second question was about the age of the person answering to understand who is really involved in game industry. So the age of the respondents varies from 16 years to 35 years and is mainly people around 22 years old were involved in the survey.
The number of the respondents was 84 . Next graph was about if the people are playing computer games , 25 % of all the respondents answered that they dont play , while the other answered positively , so with that in mind we can surely imagine how big is the gaming sector and what are the possibilities in Lithuania for it . The 4th question about times spent playing says: most of the people answer the question that they play 2-3 times a week , which is a good statement to begin with to see that people are really into gaming and spend quite some time a week for a leisure activity pic] 5th question was about a particular time spent playing on a average session of gaming : So the answeres where as follows , 42 respondents answered that their gaming session is around 2-3 hours if they do it . Speaking about the game system or game console people are using in order to fill their lust for gaming : PC is the most usable around the consoles . Also interesting fact that mobile tend to be very well used as a gaming console which is a very big surprise to some of the game developers. [pic]
In terms of what games people are usually playing its for everything almost the same so it usually depends on the taste of the person , so if game developers are looking for a perfect start then the game genre really doesnt matter much as though every genre has its own segment of people playing , so it depends more on the game developer what they want to make as their primary game genre . Same goes for the next question about game developers , most of them are well known for people , or at least people heard about them .
So its not really about the big name its about how they present themselves , what is their approach and what games do they do for the masses . Also if they are willing to change depending on the human behaviour or buying habits . Now for the biggest issue so far , as it goes down to what are peoples buying habits . So in the chart we see that people tend to download games rather then buying them , so game developers must search for another way , to encourage people to buy the game or at least form a P2P system or make it partially payable , which means the game is free , but there is an extra content for an extra charge . pic] The next question was for those who buy games and is definitely important.. On average people tend to spend around 200-400 Lt on games per year . but as seen from the last question only 30% of people are actually buying the games . So that is a really big point on which gaming industries must think about . The 11th question is very interesting as it shows what particularly people are interested in games .
As seen from the graph people are more interested in an interesting idea with and gameplay or storyline , rather than the graphics , although graphics is still a very strong factor . Which comes to a very interesting discovery that the game developer doesn’t really matter it scored only 5. 5% from 100. Here is the graph to make it all clearer [pic] Now the question about advertising issues , so as known from other sources of information the best way of advertising is the word of mouth , so if your friend tells you the game is good , you will definitely try it out .
The second best way to advertise is social media ( Facebook , Twitter and so on ) , while only the third is gaming websites which contains a lot more information on the games . [pic] While investigating a new form of marketing I ended up thinking how to interact it with the school/university and other educational institutions to make it better or to use some kind of restrictions so that people would not only care about the online life , but also about their everyday life offline .
So there are some suggestions that i made , and this is what the respondents answered to the question given :[pic] As for the last question of the questionnaire i intended to do a open question , which will investigate the negative and positive effects of gaming industry on people . From this point we will see what strategy the game developer should use in order to improve the positive feedbacks of the gaming industry . So the question was : Did gaming influence your personal life ?
If so, how ? The answeres very different . To my surprise there were answeres like gaming improved english language , and historical knowledge , it makes you a more sociable person ,somebody got from playing to working with games , changing personality of a person and so on . The feedback was more positive than negative , which concludes that gaming does a pretty good impact on the person in every aspect of their life , depending on the genre of the game played . Conclusions
After my analysis, and the collected data I have made very clear notes that every company must think of another way to attract people to the gaming industry Also the buying habits changed , some people as seen from my report are still into hard covered video games which they have in their collection , but most of the people that buy games , buy them online and don’t have a video game at home , just an online version of it . Also if we look from advertising perspective , then game developers must be more concentrated on advertising on Social Media rather the old fashioned way on TV, Magazines, Radio or Posters .
If the company is a newcomer and a new player in the market it doesn’t have to think a lot about the genre of the game , rather it should concentrate on original and creative idea and also on the story and gameplay. And look at the fact that people are mostly downloading the game m then the new company must surely see the opportunity of a F2P or in other words free to play game , with an extra content , which will cost money . That way a lot of people will play your game and others who tend to get more satisfaction will pay for the extra .
From the research we see that gaming does more of a positive impact on people rather than doing a negative one . And the population is more and more into games and it doesn’t depend on the gender or age . My personal questionnaire answered the main questions: • most the respondents are playing video games • mostly they spend more than 2-3 hours per gaming session • Gaming has changed and it became not only the home leisure activity , but people tend to play on their mobile phones • 70% of all the respondents do not buy the games , they download it , so game developers must think of another way to attract people . The biggest advertising impact is of course the word of mouth , then it is social media and only after that the gaming websites • more respondents are interested in buying games online as it is comfortable , fast and convinient • Gaming really does a positive impact on children • popular age group 18-25 We can see from the numbers that its not only about whats on the inside of the game , but also how it is presented to the masses , how the game developers are tend to change their priorities and strategies over time to make it better for the consumer .
References http://apklausa. lt/f/marketing-developing-game-industry-ytpzuqd. fullpage Interactive Advertising Bureau, Marketer & Agency Guide to online game advertising Tracy L. Tuten Social Media marketing in a Web Hair Bush Ornitau “Marketing Research http://www. adfoster. com/primary_secondary_data_what_s_the_difference http://www. audiencedialogue. net/kya10. html http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/focus-group. html [pic] [pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic] ———————– [1] Hair Bush Ornitau “Marketing Research” [2] http://www. adfoster. om/primary_secondary_data_what_s_the_difference [3] Hair Bush Ornitau “Marketing Research [4] Source: http://www. audiencedialogue. net/kya10. html [5] http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/focus-group. html [6] The model is taken from Hair Bush Ornitau “Marketing Research [7] http://www. samplequestionnaire. com/ ———————– Favourite game developers Expectations of the game How game developers can interact with people ? Buying habits of e-shops and real shops Influence on personal life Gaming consoles Influence of the advertisments Information about upcoming games
