World of warcraft subscribers 2018

Video Game(World Of Warcraft) Marketing Plan

Zhuo Chen, Chuyu Gong, QIn Yan, Ziyan Wang, Yuqi Yang

01

02

03

04

Competition & Growth

Pricing

Integrated Marketing Communication

Integrated Marketing Channels

05

Digital Communications

Competition & Growth

-01-

Market Share and Revenue

In total, Activision Blizzard is estimating to hold a 4% of the $150 billion global gaming industry

2019, Activision Blizzard hits Q3 earnings targets with World of Warcraft Classic strong results. The revenue for Q3 were $1282 billion, as compared to $1,105 billion for Q3 in 2018

Based on the financial report, WoW is still a strong profit-generating product

Product concept

Game industry:

Ever-changing;

Technology improves;

Techniques change

Design philosophies outdated

Keep our customers being

attracted, there’s more you can do in this game

Age between 16-40, male players

TARGET MARKET

Keep loyal customers (age 30+) who started a decade ago

Bring more nostalgic elements to the game

Indicate more fun to new gamers (age 16-29) to the World of Warcraft

Infuse popular culture to attract the younger generation

Estimated Sales from 2016

Number of World of Warcraft (WoW) subscribers from 2015 to 2023(in millions) Resources: Statista

Number of subscribers 2005-2018

Expanded Ramblings Get the data Created with Datawrapper

Common Marketing Tactics for Video games

Twitch Streaming (Twitch.tv, purchased by Amazon, 15 million daily active users)

Gamer Sponsorships

Product Placements (McDonalds and Nintendo)

Mobile Ads

We suggest World of Warcraft should focus on the first strategy, as potential customers will be more involved.

Higher Marketing Expenses

Resources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/308955/activision-blizzard-advertising-spending-usa/

Suggestion to Marketing Budget

Two approaches

Remain the budget: based on the sales performance and marketing expenses over the last few years, the subscribers kept going down, while marketing expenses remained the same level, we may should focus on efficiency of marketing expense.

Higher the budget: Since the existing marketing approaches proved to be not effective, we might need to higher budget to exploit new approaches

P ricing

-02-

What should blizzard (WoW) primary pricing objective be?

Lower it's one time purchase price in order to attract more customers

Try to do subscription ($9.99/ month).

Or do promotional price ( maybe 20% off on it’s original price)

Maybe more in app purchases

such as game currency for game equipments

generate more revenue

Most of its games are vantage game, such as world of warcraft, overwatch, Hearthstone.

Therefore, primary customers of its games are middle aged men who might even have families to provide. (They are likely to be price sensitive)

Are gaming customers likely to be price sensitive?

Some gaming customers are price sensitive and some gaming customers are not.

Depends on the genre of the games the customer liked to play

WoW is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game

Most people play it because of suggestion of friends (they might be price sensitive.)

But some people had attracted by WoW the game itself ( they might less price sensitive)

Depends on the game publish year

Older games- price sensitive (WoW is hard to attract more new players)

Newer games- not price sensitive

Are gaming customers likely to be price sensitive?

Some gaming customers are price sensitive and some gaming customers are not.

Depends on the target customer age group

Young adults - less price sensitive (have time and spare money)

People who are married- price sensitive (family to provide)

What are the implications for your pricing decisions?

Do not do one time purchase

Wow is an older game

Customers might be 30 or older (Highly likely married)

Less people would buy it because WoW is less competitive than others.

Wow is difficult to play for new users

but old users might be addicted it

Instead, do subscription plus some in-app purchase options

Wow is easier to generate profits from old users.

They would spend more time on the game and upgrade their game equipments

might get extra cash because many users are likely forgot to cancel their subscription

What price adaptations should blizzard (Wow) include in its marketing plan?

Do subscription and in-app purchase on older games (such as Wow)

Do promotional price strategy on newer games on holidays or promotional events. (such as 10%-20% off depends on sales)

What price adaptations should blizzard (Wow) include in its marketing plan?

For example: World of warcraft

Since its release way back in 2004, World of Warcraft has stuck to a very familiar revenue model. First, you needed to buy the game, which comes with 30 days of free play time. After that, a $14.99 a month subscription was required to keep playing.

Nearly 14 years later, and Blizzard is finally changing that model by dropping the requirement to purchase the game first. Instead, simply subscribing allows access to all currently available content. The one exception to that is future expansion packs including the forthcoming Battle for Azeroth.

By removing the need to buy the game, Blizzard both lowers the barrier to entry and clears up any potential confusion. The game now simply costs $15 a month to play and you get access to all available content by default.

Integrated Marketing Channels

-03-

Integrated Marketing Channels

Sets of interdependent organizations participating in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption

Using two or more marketing channels to reach customer segments in one market area

Zero-level channel (direct)

One/two/three-level channels (intermediaries)

Reverse-flow channels

Marketing Channels

1- level Channel level is appropriate for World of Warcraft

Game is released on Blizzard Entertainment official website

Customers can download World of Warcraft directly from the website

Only a few retailers can carrying this games

Number of Intermediaries

Exclusive distribution: is used for new automobiles, some major appliances, and some women’s apparel brands

Selective distribution: relies on only some of the intermediaries willings to carry a particular product

Intensive distribution: places the goods or services in as many outlets as possible

Which one should World of Warcraft Choose?

Exclusive Distribution for World of Warcraft

Only certain retailers are given the opinion of carrying a product

Can download World of warcraft online or from a disc

Create a prestigious brand image

Easily keep focus on the performance of WOW in the gaming market

Type of Retailers

Store retailers, nonstore retailers, and retail organizations

Non-store Retailing: Direct marketing, Direct selling, Automatic vending, Buying services

Wholesaling: includes all the activities in selling goods or services to those who buy for resale or business use

Non-store Retailing for World of Warcraft

Non-store retailing

Selling of goods and services outside the confines of a retail store

Direct selling

A direct seller buys products from a parent organization and sells them directly to customers

Integrated Marketing Communication

-04-

Communication Objectives

Marketing Communications: firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers - directly or indirectly- about the products and brands they sell (Keller, 558)

Inform & Remind: Let players know when WOW is updating via inside game announcement or email

Communication: mainly consumer services via phone

New portion of the market: mobile game(Hearthstone)

Strategy One:

Provide sales promotion during weekdays

Players spend less time on WOW during weekdays, so we need to stimulate their interests by providing promotion on monthly purchase ($14.99 per month subscription)

Marketing Communication Mix

Advertising: more effective with online advertisements for targeted consumers

Sales Promotion for WOW:

Provide discount for monthly purchase

Increase purchase within games (eg. lol)

Increase the variety of limited game props to stimulate players’ spending on the game

Strategy Two:

Always cater to players

Understand and notify players’ needs

Improve offline activities (Blizzcon)

Update more information about WOW’s future trend

Plot setting and storyline need to be more integrated

Create new dungeons

Digital Plan of Content Tactics

Enrich Events and Experiences:

Engage more in Movies and Animation Derivatives

Warcraft (2016)movies review:

Fans: “Nostalgia”, “A MUST watch for all fantasy genre lovers” , “Game Over”

(IMDb Reviewers)

Non-fans: Good but not great

Target market: WOW players; Fans’ Movie

It doesn’t need to be perfect but it is necessary

Digital Plan of Content Tactics

Events and Experiences: Satisfy players’ needs

BlizzCon

Issues: ‘failure’ in BlizzCon 2018, over 100K dislikes upon players’ reaction on Youtube;

WOW(2018): nothing to be surprised

WOW(2019): cater to players

BlizzCon 2019

Digital Plan of Content Tactics

Events and Experiences:

BlizzCon

Improvements (WOW 2019):

Complete plot setting of the game background

Increase difficulty for skilled players

Reduces level cap for classic who are bored of level boosting

Strategy Three:

Promote Customer Services and Social Awareness

Create automatic reply system for players to solve basic problems

Customer service via phone is time consuming and hire more staffs

WOW is famous but fading away

Need more online advertisements

Put advertisement in some popular games or Youtube game sector

Digital Plan of Content Tactics

Online and Social media marketing:

Increase online activities to engage players to:

Raise awareness: email reminder, promotions to loyal players

Improve images and game modes: players get bored with classic dungeons

Elicit sales: provide discounts of month subscriptions of WOW ($14.99), offer more in-game purchases

Digital Plan of Content Tactics

Direct and database marketing

E-mails: an easier way to get in touch with players but not effective enough

Personal selling: not work in this case, but offline promotions are encouraged (BlizzCon) and need to be improved

Digital Communications

-05-

Digital Communication in video games

Video game companies have to differentiate

their products and services using entertaining information and digital communication strategies.

Video games constitute a media in itself which, through the Internet, develops human networks. In order to expand and bring their communities together in the best possible ways, companies adopt different digital communication strategies based on several channels.

Categories of online marketing communications

– Web sites

Ease of use

Physical attractiveness

Microsites

– Search ads

Paid search or pay-per-click ads

Search engine optimization (SEO)

– Display ads

– E-mail

Word of Mouth

Viral marketing: generate interest and the potential sale of a brand or product through messages

Advertising, PR, and digital agencies

Demographic information or proxies for that information and cookies

Mobile Marketing

Mobile apps

Across markets

How should World of Warcraft use “word of mouth” strategy

Build an engaged social community

Develop loyal fans by social media ads

Find uniqueness

simplistic, brick-by-brick game design

Differences with competitor (LOL)

LOL is a pvp only, very simple game with basically a single and rather small map

WOW is mainly pve, with a playing ground spanning continents and planets

Target audience of World of Warcraft

Main players are from age 16 to 25

Target the newer generation of gamers and hopefully bringing a lot of new gamers to the world of warcraft

Ads on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat can attract more gamers

Company’s communication channels

give Internet users the latest updates on World of Warcraft

Thanks!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803096/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

https://blizzcon.com/zh-tw/

https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/07/activision-blizzard-hits-q3-earnings-targets-with-strong-world-of-warcraft-classic-results/

https://www.slideshare.net/MathieuDesgurse/digital-communication-in-video-game-industry-mathieu-desgurse

Resources