by Apple released a list last year (2013), which revealed that games governed free application downloads for both devices iPad & iPhone devices. It discussed multiple free apps and their positions. The Candy Crush saga was positioned at the first place (for both devices), Temple run got third place and Despicable Me: Minion Rush was also included in the top ten for both iPad and iPhone. Focusing on the marketing perspective, paid gaming apps created a great success story. Minecraft, Heads Up, Angry Birds Star Wars, Temple Run: Oz, Bad Piggies and Toca Hair Salon 2 were the best names in the top 10 list.
The outcomes of this list of 2013, made the future of Zynga’s debatable. In the end of the year, an improvement was noticed in the performance of Zynga’s. And, this suggested the new ways for video games companies to get connected with social media platform. Let’s have a look at some of the ways that how the video game marketing is connected with social media and how it proves to be useful:
Cross-sells
For many video games like Angry Birds Star Wars series, cross-selling has proved to be quite beneficial. The Senior Vice President of Marketing of Rovio named Ville Heijari came with a remark that Angry Birds’ Star Wars came with two different streams of cross-promotional publicity. Getting combined with Angry Birds’, the large Star Wars fan base gave Rovio the fastest iPhone chart-topper. You will come to know this fact after visiting the websites of reputed brands like EA’s Origin line that there are numerous opportunities to cross-promote the latest games in the similar line to buyers of the initial (first) game.
Upsells
Upselling is also a wonderful sales strategy with which, video games have been adapted to social media successfully. It becomes clearer with an example offered by Temple Run. It explains that Temple Run is free to use, but gold coins are required for progress and players are able to purchase extra gold coins with solid (real) money as an upsell. They need to do so, if they really want to run faster. This comes with a better approach as compared to the Farmville’s strategy, which nags players constantly for money in order to relish with the superior game play.
Market Research
An exquisite benefit that video game marketing receives from social media is the market research. For example, the demographic data, which exists on Facebook makes it possible for Market Research Reports to predict about the trends in Facebook vs. non-Facebook gaming markets. This also comes with the estimates, which game genre will gain more popularity in the next 5 years. It is expected that as compared to the $9.6 billion revenue for non-Facebook games, the Facebook gaming will get $5.6 billion revenue annually by 2018. According to the trends, second-screen gaming and social casino on mobile social networks are expected to become the key drivers.
Referrals
Undoubtedly, referrals are considered one of the most powerful forms of marketing to market any kind of business and video games are certainly not an exception. The Candy Crush Saga creator Tommy Palm says that multiple viral marketing factors have contributed in the rapid rise of this game. It has gained a great viral momentum and the proof behind it is that 150,000 new installations were recorded on iOS free downloads chart. Referrals such as word-of-mouth, King’s existing user base and Facebook friend referrals are offering a great contribution.
Conclusion:
These were some of the ways that revealed that how social media is beneficial for video game marketing and helps the people avail wonderful outcomes.
