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My work has given me the opportunity to be at the helm of rapid innovation in the world of gaming. And one of the fastest growing segment is interactive gaming where the user gets to play the game and also create content like videos, virtual goods and even produce story lines. This is largely influenced by video gaming.
Here are three scenarios to help you make sense of what I am saying:
- Communities get involved in creating content: Guitar hero is a game which allow users to create their own songs and share it with their friends. Also, game content creation enables users to create their own virtual goods to share with their friends. This leads to a new digital economy when the users can share the profits from the sale of their virtual goods with the developers. Allowing both communities of users and developers to benefit from each other – a win-win situation.
- Games become advertising channels: The massive amount of users on some of these games make it attractive for Brands to be in front of them. But now it is not an irritating ad banner but your hero in the game has the ability to get his favorite “drink”, stop by their favorite “Gas station” or even dress their avatars in their favorite brands. For brands this is an ideal product placement since traditional media is not effective for reaching the growing demographic of digital natives.
- Story lines get interactive: Game developers are now building games where a player can engage in the story development. He is required to upload a video, find a clue in another website or even visit a real location to get a “clue” to progress into a next level if they wish to continue playing.
For this behavior to continue it is critical to nurture the communities of gamers. So, the marketing departments in different gaming companies have to become competent in listening to these communities and engage with them by tweeting, blog posts and updates so that they retain the users who are HARD CORE gamers.
Photo Credit: Papermag
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