From In-Game Advertising to In-Game Selling: The Next Big Thing?
While In-Game Advertising is growing to $2 billion in 2012, In-Game Selling has all the ingredients to become the next big business model innovation in the gaming industry. Our analysis of the business model behind in-game advertising discussed how game publishers sell the ‘attention’ of their audience to advertisers. The next step now is to go from ‘attention’ to ‘buying’, or from in-game advertising to in-game selling:
- In-Game Advertising: gamers will see in-game references to a Pizza fast food chain, but still need to pick up the phone or surf to the website in order to order pizza delivery.
- In-Game Selling: there is a Pizza delivery icon, shortcut or location in the game environment, where you can order a pizza just by a click of the button. Example: While playing EverQuest II just type /pizza and a web browser will launch the online ordering section of pizzahut.com. Fill in your info and just kick back until fresh pizza is delivered straight to your door. Domino’s Pizza announced similar ambitions.
In-Game Selling business model
Where previously the game was just a standard product or experience, it is upgraded with a sales channel for other products and services (f.e. pizza delivery). The game actually offers a platform to bring together buyer and sellers, and brings benefits to both, which we know as a brokerage service. Similar to other brokers, game publishers can charge a listing fee to the seller, and/or a commission per transaction. The generic principle here is very valuable: could your existing product or service offer a channel to facilitate specific buy/sell transactions? Which goods or services are your users interested in? Which sellers are interested in your users?
In-Game Selling is a specific example. Any suggestions for a good generic name for this new business model? In-Product Selling, Free+Reseller = Freeseller, In-App Commerce…?
More revenue model examples and inspiration:
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March 17th, 2009 at 20:55
[...] services on which Apple will take big margins thanks to the in-app purchases, they will be in the in-game selling model we’ve just [...]
March 23rd, 2009 at 14:37
[...] tweede model wat ze zelf in-game selling noemen (ze zoeken nog een andere naam, tips zijn welkom) gaat een stapje verder. Volgens het [...]
March 26th, 2009 at 13:59
[...] From In-Game Advertising to In-Game Selling: The Next Big Thing … Share and [...]
June 7th, 2009 at 23:03
[...] previously described on In-Game Selling, companies are moving from advertisement based revenue models to in-app commerce or in-product [...]
June 9th, 2009 at 18:05
[...] and transfer their general principles into your industry. Specific cases will illustrate what the innovation is in the business model of new start-ups, how you can make the transfer from one model to another, [...]
June 24th, 2009 at 23:29
[...] network then extra recurrent micro-transactions are possible. Extra levels, game add-ons or even third party sales could take place inside the game in order to expand the game experience. Possibly this second [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 16:13
Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so!
February 20th, 2010 at 00:55
Thanks for the infos! Your post actually helped me.