e-Commerce: Complete. Configured. Connected.
Posts tagged E-Commerce 3.0
Plimus and Yummy Interactive
Jun 21st
I have exciting news to share with you. Last week, Plimus and Yummy Interactive together announced the development of an e-Commerce platform for casual game publishers. In-Game Activation interface enables not only a one-click purchase, but maintains the game experience throughout the transaction. So what does this mean for casual gamers?
Previously, all casual gaming and other online purchasing services were forced to deploy e-Commerce platforms that required users to leave the game environment in order to complete a transaction. To enhance their gaming experience, such as buying additional credits or purchasing the game after an initial free trial, users had to launch another Web browser page and were bombarded with a “friction-full” experience.
In-Game Activation interface is helping limit the hassle of online, in-gaming transactions. Using the Plimus e-Commerce application and its own GameShield™ licensing protection solution, Yummy Interactive has developed an e-Commerce interface that keeps the player immersed within the game environment during the transaction, which not only enriches the user experience but also increases conversion rates and revenue.
You can read the entire release here.
Charlie Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brewbooks/244365591/
The History of Casual Gaming
Jun 16th
I recently read a post from Gamasutra blogger David Wesley on “The Rise in Casual Gaming.” David was commissioned to author a chapter in the manuscript “Innovation and Marketing in the Video Game Industry,” and did a wonderful job sharing his insights. I downloaded the chapter via the website and found the read very interesting.
The casual gaming market is a big one for Plimus, and we’re working daily with game developers, publishers, and their affiliates. We find this industry to be extremely fascinating and are thrilled to be part of it and work with leading companies as we do.
Gaming has come a long way since the Solitaire and Minesweeper games we played on our old PCs. Since then, the Internet has prompted casual gaming to take off. The quick nature of casual gaming was extremely attractive to developers because its short form made it incredibly low-cost to make, which allowed developers to take greater creative risks. Casual gaming also allowed smaller development shops to enter the market.
Casual gaming also opened up new audiences, appealing to non-traditional players, such as stay-at-home mothers and business people on Wall Street. They were quick, simple to follow and typically light entertainment, not high intensity like first-person shooter games. Casual gaming found its sweet spot as time-fillers – games played on the bus to work or in between meetings.
According to the Casual Gaming Association, women make up 75 percent of the casual gaming audience and more than 72 percent of casual gamers are over the age of 35.
Now, 15 years after PC gaming caught on, casual gaming is big business. This week’s E3 show in LA, while historically very platform and device centered, has a large amount of buzz around PC and social gaming. Casual gaming is maturing. Today’s gamers include men, women, children and even senior citizens. These gamers simply enjoy playing, whether it be a puzzle game, sports game or an arcade game. Game on!
Charlie Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45688285@N00/82128314/
Dear Customer, Do You Want To Get Married? (Part 2 of 2)
Jun 11th
(Click here for part 1 of this article.)
Who is the Subscription Model Suitable For?
Despite the challenge in assimilating the subscription model, I am a sworn supporter of it and, in my opinion, the answer to the question of whether it is worth your while as a business to operate the model for your customers is simple: Can you do it? If the answer is yes, then you have answered yourself and the model is definitely appropriate. And when I ask if you can do it, I mean:
- Is the main value of the service expressed in the long term or is it awarded with the purchase? Undeniably for Microsoft Word, the use is provided in the long term and can be sold as a subscription. However, in fact, it is exposed entirely immediately following the sale. Therefore, services that wish to have regular subscribers need to distribute the value over time whether by software renewals, customer services, or content. A service without improvements and innovations is perceived as providing value for regular customers.
- Does the product have practical value for its owners? There are innumerable spontaneous, sentimental, and foolish purchases on the Internet. However, at the end of the day, common sense prevails and only services which award a practical value and answer a clear need will enjoy prolonged customer life. Dependence is the name of the game.
- Will the activation of the model endanger another growing business model of the company or will it cause the users to turn away? You can courageously opt to cleanse the user base by making a conscious decision to lose users used to a free service in the hope that the new users who will replace them recognize the service as bearing a price tag from the start and will not abandon it when they see the purchase screen.
If the answer to the first two questions is yes, and you have considered the third, all that remains is to get going and decide which subscription plans will you offer. Here, too, experimentation and continual optimization are part of the process. However, here are some original subscription plan ideas for overcoming consumer resistance:
- A monthly subscription for which the initial period is offered at a symbolic price or even for free (with the credit card details already taken at this point). Make sure not to offer a free period that is too long, as this enables the users to lose their “purchase momentum.” Let them have a taste, get excited, and upgrade immediately. Each month that passes decreases the chance of turning free users into paying subscribers by 50%.
- A gift period offered only after several months’ use. For instance, if you have found that on average the subscription on the site is for two months, promise a fourth month free. This is will attract the users to take the third month in order to receive the gift.
- A subscription for a reduced price. The longer the subscription continues, the more the price is reduced and is less “burdensome” for the subscribers, despite the decrease in use or benefit.
By way of conclusion, don’t forget to offer several subscription periods while giving an obvious advantage in pricing and visual prominence for the long periods and recommend to users the preferred options as far as you are concerned. A heading such as “the most popular plan” will attract the risk haters, and “the best value plan” will attract the more frugal of the bunch.
Eldad Ben Tora,
VP of Product Management
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marlon-bunday-mmx/4484203465/
Dear Customer, Do You Want To Get Married? (Part 1 of 2)
Jun 9th
So you have launched a start up – congratulations! It’s a sure bet that you are going to make millions. There is just one small question left: how, exactly are you going to make all those millions? In recent years, we have been informed about business models which expand the ways that business owners on the Net can finance their activities – whether from sales of virtual products (Stardoll Habbo Hotel), remuneration from Google for clicks by their users; by financed searches (Incredimail, Conduit), affiliate commission fees on transactions and leads and more.
However, one model in particular refuses to disappear and is even enjoying an impressive period of renaissance, especially for business users: charges for services by a renewable subscription. This model is precisely suited for businesses that sell “software as a service” (SaaS) at a cost running from tens up to hundreds of dollars per month.
The number of companies in this segment has increased here at Plimus by tens of percent annually and, according to Gartner, the trend is expected to continue.
It is no secret that a business that bases its revenues on subscribers enjoys great advantages: built-in returning customers, the ability to forecast ongoing revenues; a database of users who can be restored to the service as paying customers and can even be encouraged to market it to others.
It is no surprise that this is the dream of many businesses. However, unfortunately for them, this is not the preferred model for the majority of users. As users, most of us have a natural distaste for a permanent arrangement of a continuing payment. It is plain as day that the charges will exceed the time we can make actual use of the service, and that we will find it difficult or forget to cancel the automatic renewal. (By the way, such concerns are justified as a significant percentage of all the automatic renewals for online services are derived from the customers’ forgetfulness or indifference. The business owners take the calculated risk of requests for credits and transaction denials in order to enjoy these repeat purchases. I have experienced very few transactions as a customer that sent me a reminder regarding a subscription that is coming up for renewal.)
It is a tough challenge for businesses to succeed with this model both for the initial purchase, changing the free user into a paying customer, and also in “prolonging the customer life span.” Of interest, as regards the prolonging of the customer life I remember well an amusing conflict during the years that I worked for the dating websites “Cupid” and “American Singles” – an industry that survives totally on subscriptions.
On dating websites, the objective of the service is to identify for the subscribers love and companionship then send them far away from the site for long-term relationships. That is to say, the better the work done by the site, the quicker the customers will leave the site. It’s absurd isn’t it?
Eldad Ben Tora,
VP of Product Management
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benstephenson/276931142/
Casual Gaming – Who Knew It Could Improve Cognition?
Jun 4th
Last week, there was some very interesting news about casual gaming. While some may say those long hours spent on casual gaming is a waste of time or that it turns the brain into mush, those arguments no longer hold up. I knew it! Here’s why: initial results from a new study being conducted by East Carolina University’s (ECU) Psychophysiology Lab found that casual games may have a positive effect on cognition. The study is in its sixth month of trial and currently has 40 participants who are 50 and older. Specifically for this study, the subjects are playing PopCap’s games such as Bejeweled and Peggle though the company did not commission the study.
A recent an article in Gamasutra states, “Thus far, the study’s finding [show] visible improvements in short-term cognition among the participants playing casual games — promising news for health professionals interested in ways to provide mental exercise for the aging and those with dementia-family disorders like Alzheimer’s.”
Additional findings of the study showed that participants who played casual games for 30 minutes demonstrated an 87 percent improvement in cognitive response time and an overwhelming 215 percent increase in executive functioning.
So what does this mean? Experts from ECU believe that this makes casual gaming just about as effective as other medical treatments for cognition. The longer a subject plays a casual game, the greater the impact on their overall health. So, let me hypothesize that therefore, it is important for game developers, such as PopCap, to build games that provide a “frictionless,” e-Commerce 3.0 immersive gaming experience. Limit the number of distractions or unwanted variables during the gaming experience and it stands to reason developers can have a positive impact on the gamers’ cognition… and their revenues too!
Given the 30th anniversary of Namco Pac-Man and my current focus on being a master chef in Youda Games’ aptly-titled Sushi Chef, do you think maybe if I kick my game playing up a notch I could count on always finding where I put the car keys?
Charles Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lollaping/2853820634/
Death of the Online Storefront?
May 26th
E-commerce as we’ve known it is over.
Consumer lifestyles are morphing and the always-on, always-connected era is here for many. For example, who doesn’t leave home without their smart phone anymore? And, with it we can do more than just text or call someone. If we want, we can make secure purchases with always on Internet connectivity or buy a video and watch that final episode of Lost while riding the bus to work. Despite these lifestyle changes, one thing still remains the same – the transaction environment, the store front, is tied to a web browser.
However, there are forces today at play that are going to rapidly change the e-commerce landscape. The rise of the social web has created communities that are changing the online buying process, shifting focus away from brand-owned properties toward peer-to-peer recommendations on social networks. I predict in the near future we will no longer search for products and services – they will find us via the social web.
This is e-Commerce 3.0 in action – the vision to give the consumer ultimate flexibility and simplicity by leveraging the always-on, always-connected persistence of Web 3.0 connectivity. In this new world, consumers want content, not a sales pitch. The ultimate customer experience is the ability to buy anything, anywhere in the world, from any application, on any device, at any time. Simply, the “transaction,” or the selling point, must be part of the consumer’s content experience: They must be able to buy on the fly as part of a new “frictionless commerce” paradigm.
E-Commerce is changing – what does this mean for the traditional internet store front enabled by a single browser and limited payment methods? Stay tuned. There is more to be discussed on this topic.
Charlie Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/4079485053/
