Game design as marketing:Business/game developer’s dilemma
Juho Hamari@
GAS Seminar2.3.2010
Juho Hamari – M. Sc. (Econ)Researcher @ HIITInformation 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.modelsRevenue
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
Microtransactio
ns - emphasis
on meeting the
willingness-to-
spend by price
discriminating
Acquisition,
retention,
monetisation
Deg
ree
of inte
grat
ion b
etw
een g
ame
and b
iz d
esig
n
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