Video games have the most devoted following of any entertainment medium. Gamers queue for days to pick up new blockbusters at launch. They furiously defend their favourite games from criticism. And they don’t just want to talk with developers and publishers – they want to get involved.

Such passion is great for the industry. Word of mouth rallies fellow fans to support each new release and their feedback, both positive and negative, can be invaluable. But the ardour of the enthusiasts holds a greater potential.Rising Star’s head of digital communications Tristram Defries says: “Traditional marketing and PR is vital when releasing a game but you can’t communicate with people in the same way you can working with the gaming community. It’s the best way to learn what our potential market are looking for and what games we can bring to the UK.”

Activity through forums, Facebook, Twitter and even the consoles themselves creates a direct link from company to consumer. The trick is to ensure the link works both ways.“Gaming is built on a foundation of user interaction – when you perform an action, you expect a reaction,” says Daniel Maher, Xbox Live Editor for Microsoft Europe and co-host on Xbox Live show SentUAMessage. “That’s the principle we apply to Inside Xbox. Our fans aren’t the passive sort – when they’re not gaming, they’re constantly on the hunt for new information, or communicating with each other via Xbox Live and other social networks.”

SOCIAL LIFE

These networks have significantly expanded the scope of community management. No longer are firms dealing only with traditional message boards, which require time, money and maintenance to run. Instead the hard work is handled by Twitter and Facebook, making it easier to interact with millions at no extra cost. Except effort.


Nick Price, community manager at Hitman developer IO Interactive, adds: “Using tools that are free is obviously a bonus but we often look to deliver something extra like apps for Facebook. This can cost money, but it’s the same sort of investment as marketing. We see our community as a long-term investment.”

And crucially, it’s important to remember that the community has invested just as much emotion into games as the publishers.“We should always care what gamers think of the game they’ve bought,” says Codemasters’ digital marketing director Lizzie Wilding. “A lot of time, money and emotional vested interest goes into playing the game, and so to allow anyone to get involved with that through community and social media is very valuable.”

Maher warns that companies treating social media as free advertising are doing themselves a disservice: “If you’re planning to use it as a cheap substitute for a press release, ad banner or mini-site, the majority of gamers will cry foul pretty quickly and your stock among fans will plummet accordingly.”The emphasis, then, should be on actually socialising with the fans. In this way, a more personal bond can be developed – one that must be tended to on at least a daily basis.

Price says: “It’s important to constantly interact as that’s a part of human nature. We have to nurse our community, to ensure we have a steady and engaged fanbase, one which will share their excitement with a wider group.”

THE AMBASSADOR’S RECEPTION

Efficient community management can mold gamers into consumer ambassadors, fans that will readily promote and champion upcoming titles to their peers. These emissaries can often spread a publisher’s message to people that are beyond their reach, such as relatives and other non-gamers.

“People will always tell friends and family about a show they’ve seen, an album they’ve heard or a game they’ve played, and it’ll always have some degree of influence on their own purchasing decisions and those of whoever they decide to tell,” explains Maher.

“Consumer ‘ambassadors’ do precisely the same thing to a wider audience and they’re often already respected for their opinions based on the popularity of blogs, Twitter following, and so on.”

Sun adds: “The whole social networking experience has changed the users’ behaviour. Most internet users trust what is recommended by friends on Twitter and Facebook, rather than going to browse sites for find new information. If the ambassador is doing a good job, the audience would ask and consider their opinion more than the others.”

Defries agrees: “I think they can be very effective. There’s a big difference between us promoting a product and a consumer recommending it to acquaintances. At the heart of it there is an issue of trust – consumers are more inclined to follow a friend’s recommendation than a salesman’s.”

However, Maher observes that some consumer ambassadors do not bend as many ears as they would have you believe.

“Within gaming, I think there are very few people who could claim to wield such power, although various blog and fansite owners have convinced naive publishers they do,” he says. “They will have some impact on sales and downloads, but I don’t know how you measure the number of people directly ...

Trip Hawkins has unequivocally endorsed the free-to-play virtual goods model by telling GamesIndustry.biz that any game using it, no matter what the platform, will make more money than it would otherwise.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz after his presentation at last month's Gamelab event in Barcelona, Hawkins made very clear his position on where the smart future lies in terms of monetisation models.

"Well, I don't care what category it is, any segment of the games industry on any platform - if you make it free-to-play with virtual goods it'll be better, financially," Hawkins told GamesIndustry.biz. "You'll get more people to try it, you'll get more revenue from more customers, in the end."

Hawkins was speaking specifically about the launch of Chair Entertainment's Infinity Blade in Asia under a free-to-play model - a move which represents something of a change of heart for the company which was arguing in March that Apple needed to re-evaluate its curation policy in order to help support higher price points for high-end App Store titles.

Adopting that free-to-play policy, driven by the virtual goods which Hawkins described as the "most important" factor in the making new business models work, does have its own dangers, however. Introducing the ability to buy progress and advantages is likely to upset those players who have already invested time into a gaming eco-system.

"Then of course eventually Warcraft had to give in and say, okay, we need to do this ourselves. So eventually that's the way it's going to go."
"I know in the MMO market this is where it's most difficult for them to believe in it. There are so many customers - the personality of many hardcore gamers is that they want to feel better about themselves because they're dominant in the game. They're willing to put in hours and hours and hours to create a level 65 character in LOTRO and then they get mad as heck when LOTRO decides to go free-to-play and let people buy virtual goods. That drives them crazy, right?

Hawkins went on to detail the story of Brock Pierce, a former child actor who saw a gap in the market for WoW players, founding his own company which allowed account trading - something which Blizzard had precluded.

That strategy soon made Pierce a rich man, but also incurred the wroth of Blizzard, who began destroying his inventory by deleting accounts held by Pierce's company, IGE, for violating game rules. His story is long, complex and strewn with legal action, but Pierce changed the market, Hawkins says.

"Then of course eventually Warcraft had to give in and say, okay, we need to do this ourselves. So eventually that's the way it's going to go."

Nonetheless, Hawkins believes that allowing players to buy advantages is unlikely to drive away dedicated customers. Instead, the investment they've already made in your game is likely to keep them engaged - potentially turning them into the top-level spender 'whales' which exist at the top of every freemium and virtual good economy.

"And yeah, there'll be a small number of customers who'll fight against it, kicking and screaming because it takes away an advantage they have - they can put more time in," says Hawkins. "They're still going to put the time in. They're still going to play the game better than anybody else and eventually they'll put some money in to make sure they're still better."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...you-more-money ...

A new report from The NPD Group puts the total spent on games in the first quarter of 2011 at a massive £5.9 billion.

In Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend, The NPD Group puts consumer spending on physical game software (as opposed to rental or digital) at $2.03 billion. Other methods like rentals, subscriptions, micro transactions, digital downloads, DLC and mobile games are estimated to account for $1.85 billion.

Overall spending on games is up by 1.5 per cent on the first quarter of 2010.

The report uses a mixture of retail tracking, consumer research and estimates from retailers and publishers.

"While the new physical retail channel still generates the majority of industry sales, our expanded research coverage allows us to assess the total consumer spend across the growing number of ways to acquire and experience gaming, including mobile apps and downloadable content," said Anita Frazier, NPD industry analyst.

"Through a combination of point-of-sale and consumer research tracking, The NPD Group is providing an expanded, more comprehensive measure of a dynamic and rapidly evolving games industry."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...mes-in-q1-2011 ...

Ahead of the publication of the June US video games market numbers, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has predicted big drops for every major format.

“We expect hardware sales of 325,000 Wii units (down 23 per cent year-on-year), 355,000 Xbox 360 units (down 21 per cent year-on-year), 240,000 PS3 units (down 21 per cent year-on-year), 290,000 DS units (down 43 per cent year-on-year), and 165,000 3DS units.

“Overall, we expect hardware unit sales to be down 21%, with console hardware unit sales down 24 per cent and handheld hardware unit sales down 15 per cent.”

Pachter goes on to reassert his belief that the market won’t enter a cycle of recovery until both Sony and Microsoft cut the prices of their home console platforms.

“We continue to believe that sustained software sales growth will remain elusive until hardware sales rebound for an extended period of time. In our view, given the 3DS’ weak debut and the likely limited impact from May’s Wii and June’s DS Lite price cuts, a rebound is unlikely to happen until Microsoft and Sony cut the price of their consoles.

“Given the phenomenal sales growth that the Xbox 360 console has seen this year, we believe Microsoft will wait until the holidays or until sales decline before considering a price cut.”

MCV revealed last month that Sony is preparing to reveal a PS3 price cut at Gamescom next month that could result in the machine retailing for as little as £179.99.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/marke...ce-cuts/082218 ...

NPD’s Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend report has revealed that the US games market is quickly approaching the point where new, boxed video games sales are no longer the primary sector.

In Q1 2011 US consumers spent $2.03bn on boxed console and PC release.

In the same period, however, they spent a total of $1.85bn on used games, rentals, subscriptions, digital purchases, DLC, mobile games and social network games.

In total an estimated $5.9bn was spent on gaming throughout the period, up 1.5 per cent on Q1 2010.

"While the new physical retail channel still generates the majority of industry sales, our expanded research coverage allows us to assess the total consumer spend across the growing number of ways to acquire and experience gaming, including mobile apps and downloadable content," NPD’s Anita Frazier explained.

"Through a combination of point-of-sale and consumer research tracking, The NPD Group is providing an expanded, more comprehensive measure of a dynamic and rapidly evolving games industry."

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/pre-o...eleases/082214 ...

Too little, too late, we're afraid. For the past decade or so, the RIAA (amongst others) have spent every waking hour figuring out how to best sue and frighten every internet-connected human that even dares think about an illegal download. Now that said practice has failed miserably, it's finally resorting to something sensible. The entity announced today that AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision have teamed up with the RIAA and MPAA in order to agree upon a six-stage notification system that'll electronically alert internet users whenever their account is used for wrongful downloading. It's actually not all that much different than the systems that have been in place at Suddenlink for what feels like eons, but at least this creates a standard protocol that the whole lot can adhere to. Oh, and before you ask -- under no circumstances will any of these notices result in termination of your broadband connection. There's no way an ISP would agree to such a thing, and indeed, they haven't here. The full run-down can be delved into below, but it's worth noting that no extra "watching" procedures are being put into place; your ISP will only drop you a line if a content overlord asks 'em to. Good times, no?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/08/i...fy-you-to-dea/ ...

The rate at which hardware iterates in the smartphone and tablet space has allowed the technology to nearly catch up with consoles. It won't be long before we're all carrying small devices more powerful than the PS3, says Doom creator and id Software programming genius John Carmack. Speaking in an interview, he commented, 'It's unquestionable that within a very short time, we're going to have portable cell phones that are more powerful than the current-gen consoles.'"
Even if that's the case, Nintendo still wants no part of it.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/0...rrent-Consoles ...

Gamers are spending over £20 every month on digital content. MCV’s survey into the habits and opinions of download-loving gamers showed that on average regular users of these services spend £24 on apps, virtual items, DLC, downloads and subscriptions.

We surveyed 633 gamers that regularly use services like PSN, XBLA, iTunes, Steam and Battle.net.

Last week we revealed that a fifth of them no longer trust those services to look after their personal data properly. A further third say they doubt publishers can prevent online hacks.

The news about how much gamers spend on these services will come as an even starker warning to those already concerned about dented consumer confidence. Hacks and security breaches could take that £24 average down if gamers switch off from download services – when what publishers want is for it to rise as games retail spending slows.

Meanwhile, our survey also showed that Steam was the most popular download platform used, followed by Xbox Live, Facebook, PSN and iTunes.


TOP TEN DIGITAL PLATFORMS

We asked our panel of 633 gamers what services they used regulary. Here’s the Top Ten most popular online marketplaces:

1. Steam – Used by 73% of respondents
2. Xbox Live & Xbox Live Marketplace – 70%
3. Facebook – 66%
4. PlayStation Network – 65%
5. iTunes & App Store – 55%
6. Battle.ne – 38%
7. EA Store/EA Origin – 32%
8. Nintendo eStore/Wii Shop – 31%
9. uPlay – 17%
10. Good Old Games – 16%

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/digit...a-month/042682 ...

BioShock publisher 2K reckons the next Xbox and the PlayStation 4 will come with motion sensing peripherals PlayStation Move and Kinect as standard.

Both Move and Kinect are "experiments," 2K boss Christoph Hartmann told MCV.

"I don't think they are avoiding doing another machine but testing the water," he said.

"Rather than coming out and saying 'this is our console now,' I think they are playing around and seeing what they can do.

"These guys know how to manufacture the chips or push the memory, the kind of thing you usually get with each new console generation. But now everyone is looking for innovation and at online components, so they are experimenting.

"It's not been a case of just jumping on the Wii wagon – it's been a case of learning about what Wii did and trying to take it somewhere.

"When Microsoft made the Xbox, I assume there were always plans for Xbox 360. It was just the first Xbox was the machine to get it there. Microsoft was new to the party, so they used Xbox 1 to test the water. It's the same principle."

At E3 last month Sony announced 8.8 million Move controllers had been sold worldwide.

Kinect, meanwhile, has shifted 10 million units since its November 2010 launch, and is the fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-with-next-gen ...