5 Questions To Ask About Your Games Business

Kai Kuikkaniemi

GAS final seminar

100302

5 Questions

• Analysis performed in the GAS project– Inspired from service thinking, marketing science and

business strategy

• Originally 10 questions– 5 core questions for this presentation– Compact way of disseminating findings

Service thinking?

• Customer centric business– Produce value to customers

• Get, Keep, Grow– It used to be just get, but the big money is in…

• Comments?

1. How can you sustain your player relationship?

Long term and evolving customer relationship

• Most of the biggest game titles are either persistent worlds, subscription based or expand over several extensions => Long term and evolving customer relationship.

• SAAS is gaining popularity, but it is just one step in software services revolution.

• Service business and service innovation is a megatrend and one of the key focus strategies in Finland

• Service dominant logic: Check Get, Keep, Grow from Grönroos et al.

Best strategy for developing sustainable player relationship?

• Expandable and unlimited game experience • Game is a social experience• Remix and UCG interfaces• Game is part of larger media experience• Other?

2. Are you a project organization?

Game development is project

• Games development is considered as project based activity

• There are tons of management philosophies, but project-based management is only one of them. In practice, each company has own management philosophy

• Project life cycle and sustainable customer relationship management are not directly opposite perspectives, but there is clearly an emphasis difference

Most significant non-project related activity around your game?

• User guides and event hosting • Updating the game (new content)• Updating the game (bug fixes)• User generated content support, moderation• Other?

3. What is the outcome of playing your game?

About outcomes

• Nintendo has succeeded to position relatively simple games as functional (Wii Fit, Sports, Brain Training) and expand their market demographics significantly.

• There are interesting reports how gaming can decrease depression, improve eyesight (or help solve uncomputable problems

• In Digital Media Literacy (Jenkings et al.) play is perceived as one primary skill.

• Game addiction is increasing

What is the most potential outcome of your game?

• Plain game enjoyment after the play event• Some functional outcomes (skills, learning)• New social relationships• Game addiction, negative personal traits• Other?

4. How is your game found from the media cloud?

• Music distribution has been revolutionized by Spotify et al..

• DLC is the future in games too?• There are more games than ever• One game distribution service may have

hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of titles. How do you make your title recognizable from the masses?

Best strategy for making your gamevisible in the media cloud?

• Activate Word-of-Mouth mechanisms• Strengthen game-to-game linkages• External partnerships, sponsors• Functional branding• Other?

5. What is the link between your game and real world?

Link between real world and games

• Virtual vs. real rally is becoming reality• Foursquare is becoming popular in US and UK. • Several ongoing trials on merging reality and

digital football: for example Fifa Earth • Football manager online• Pervasive gaming has been an interesting

research and prototype domain for some time

What is the best way to link your game and the real world?

• There is no link, and there should not be• Embedded other media, most often music• Localized content• Real-world events or live game hosts• Other?

What is your game?

Game is a mess

• Ian Bogost keynote in Digra 2009 (Video games are a mess) inspired me to explore ontology around the games

• Definition by Oxford English Dictionary: video game, a game played by electronically manipulating images displayed on a television screen; or definition for just game: amusement, delight, fun, mirth, sport.

What is your game primarily?• Lines of code, program running in computer• Packaged media product (DVD, DLC …) • Game experience, game instants• My players and the player community• Brand, characters and the core game idea • Other?

The other questions

• Do we need financing?• What is our core asset?• How can players re-discover our game?• How can we help people to join our game

community?• Find the paper from:

www.hiit.fi/10qpaper