独家优惠奖金 100% 高达 1 BTC + 180 免费旋转

5 Lessons Gaming Companies Can Teach You About Your Business

Blizzard Entertainment, Nintendo or Riot Games can be teachers you didn’t expect to have

It used to be that gaming was a niche entertainment. It used to be for geeks and nerds. Smart and responsible adults didn’t play video games. They were perceived as a huge waste of time.

Still are, by some.

“Maybe it’s time for you to grow up”, I heard from my own boss some years ago.

But within the last two decades, the gaming industry has undergone an accelerated evolution process. These days, it’s worth billions of dollars. Playing video games is nearly as popular as watching TV shows or reading novels (shame on me; I don’t do either of the two).

A lot has happened to make this possible. The shift in the perception of video games happened on multiple levels — social and commercial to begin with.

As a gaming marketer, I observe this industry curiously. You’d be surprised how much you could learn from people running these companies.

That’s ours today’s topic.

Competition can be cruel in the gaming industry, especially when it comes to online gaming. I’ve seen shameless poaching of customers on Twitter and revelling in competitors’ mistakes.

But there are awesome moments too.

Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV are what you could call direct competitors. Their MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) are similar in design, features and model. They even have communities of fans aggressively attacking each other on different forums.

Don’t hate your competitors. You won’t win more customers by belittling product or service they deliver.

Sometimes, at least.

Shigeru Miyamoto, a video game designer at Nintendo, is famous for saying:

At the very the beginning of 2020, there were several delayed projects that gamers were anxiously looking to. The list only begins with Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us 2, World of Warcraft Reforged, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Doom Eternal.

The gaming industry knows well that the bad reception of a game can kill it. In the past years, you could notice a subtle but a decisive shift in the mentality of gaming companies: it’s better to put our customers on hold than to disappoint them with a low-quality product.

Yes, delays will annoy your customers. Most of them will roll their eyes and think you’re not being serious. But would you rather risk this or bad word of mouth, wide-spread criticism and reputation damage that may be impossible — or at least very costly — to recover from?

It’s okay to delay when the situation calls for it. Your customers will sigh and complain, but they’ll understand. Just don’t overdo it.

We used to think that only big companies have resources to create games that the world falls in love with.

But then people went insane about The Witcher series.

And who (outside of Poland) heard about CD Projekt Red before that?

Before The Witcher, they occupied themselves mostly with local distribution and localisation of foreign titles. Even the Witcher books weren’t that popular globally.

But then CDPR made the game they’re now known for.

You may not know that their road to success was bumpy and it wasn’t an overnight success. But when they did succeed, they became one of the best examples that you can compete with giants even when no one heard about you before.

If you need another example, look at Belgian Larian Studios. In 2017, they’ve released a sequel to their “classic” role-playing game: Divinity: Original Sin 2. The reception of the title was fantastic. It’s rated 10/10 by the Steam platform community and in 2018 it was awarded the British Academy Games Award for Multiplayer.

You may be small, you may be bootstrapped and without large headquarters. But it doesn’t mean your product, service or idea can’t conquer the world.

If there’s something I admire about the video game companies in particular, it’s their community-building skills. Especially through live events.

One of the most popular gaming events hosted directly by a gaming company is Riot’s League of Legends annual championship. It’s a massive tournament during which the best five-men teams compete for the Champion’s title. The venue changes from one year to another, giving different audiences a chance to watch the games in person. Apart from that, anyone in the world has access to the games through Twitch and YouTube streams.

And they’re not the only ones.

Events matter.

Consider giving them a try, even if you’re about to start small. Even a modest event for a local community can help you bond with your audience, increase the loyalty of your customers and bring your relations to a new level.

There’s one thing I see often when startups build their websites.

There’s a lot of talking about “us”, “our” team, “our”values. Companies often try to show the people behind the product (which is cool) but they often stop with a subpage to their website.

Obviously, this isn’t the case with everyone. But more companies could do what the gaming companies do. And what they do is to let people meet and remember their employees.

And trust me when I tell you, your customers WILL memorize faces, names, roles or even weird personal quirks of your employees.

Right from the start of the event, you could see people recognize who’s entering the stage. “Love you Uncle Pete!”, you hear from the crowd greeting the presenters with a standing ovation.

Faces and names have more power than logos and brand names. Do the talking and be active as a person. Let your team do the talking too. Your company doesn’t have to be a nameless mass of employees. Instead, each of you can become a strong, separate personality with a personal brand and something important to say.

It would seem like gaming is a very specific industry with its own success formula. I know, however, that with a bit of will and creativity, you can paste these patterns onto your business , whether its B2B, B2C, software, e-commerce or a physical product.

I encourage you to research this topic further and pick up tricks gaming companies use to win more customers.

There’s a lot to learn.

Add a comment

What is your view?

Send

Related posts:

Psychiatrist in noida

Depression treatment in Delhi. “Psychiatrist in noida” is published by Schizophrenia treatment in delhi.

Tudo diferente. Tudo igual.

Dentre as minhas incertezas antes de começar essa aventura, uma delas era: será que vou viver tudo aquilo que o mundo pode me oferecer? É comum lermos relatos e histórias de fulanos, cicranos e…

Top 5 Stories From Ahmed Jamal So Far

In response to the challenge made to us, writers, by Dr Mehmet Yildiz, the founder, and leader of ILLUMINATION, I decided to compile the list of my own top five favorite stories so far since I…