The Month in Review

“Make Love Not WarCraft” & Celebrity Marketing

• In 2006, Blizzard Entertainment gave the green light to South Park to create an episode using Blizzard’s “Warcraft” as the major plot driving aspect of the episode.
• The episode “Make Love Not WarCraft” won an Emmy for South Park, and when South Park released its season 10 on DVD it had a free pass to play World of WarCraft, which was a great marketing strategy.
• With a wide range of players in the World of WarCraft, Blizzard used celebrities that consumers from multiple generations could relate to.

Conclusions:

• It was a major risk for Blizzard to co-brand Warcraft with South Park, but there was a history of success for others that did the same. Just one year earlier Sony allowed South Park to use its PSP hand held console in the 4^th episode of its 9^th season. The episode was the first to ever win an Emmy for South Park. It might have been a gamble, but Blizzard used this past example to promote its brand and boost its sales.
• By using a diverse group of celebrities for its advertising campaign Blizzard has efficiently delivered it marketing message to it’s wide ranged demographic.

 

2K Sports: Sole Control of the Virtual Basketball Market

• 2K sports made its mark in the video game industry with quality designs and solid business practices. The quality of product for it’s NBA 2K franchise has pushed other competitors completely out of the market place in the last year.
• The recent title “NBA 2K13” also signed on Jay-Z, as the games producer, who set out to branch out from the genres usual Hip-Hop soundtracks.
• Jay-Z’s star power also helped convince past NBA legends like Charles Barkley to license their own likenesses for less money so 2K sports could afford to pay each member of 92’ Dream Team & even more NBA legends.

Conclusions:

• With quality designs and a spare no expense physics engine 2K sports is now experiencing the profits that come with sole control of the virtual basketball marketplace.
• With record profits this year and the #6 top spot for sales in 2012, it seems like 2K sports has the perfect recipe for success. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for this rising industry leader.

Video Games: Cultural Impact that Surpasses the Movies

• The popular and successful video games that have been made over the years are based on the classic hero story arc from our movies and literature.
• Opening weekend sales of big game titles tower over sales of even the biggest box office movies.
• Movies are not interactive like games are because of this games have a broader spectrum of experience that the end consumer is able to enjoy.
• Giving users all these choices satisfies a number of needs in Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.”

Conclusions:

• With profits that can’t be ignored, big game titles have dwarfed the revenue stream of big box office movies in recent years.
• Also with story arcs in games giving users a wide range decision-making process based on our own “Hierarchy of Needs”, games have increased the experiences that the users are immerged in creating cultural impact that movies can’t compete with. It will be interesting to see if this shift in cultural impact remains in future years.

Feminism & The Video Game Industry:

• Doritos recent survey shows that women play video games just as much as men do. With the wide range of platforms that games are being played on these days the percent of women playing video games has grown to 49%.
• The past story arcs from popular game titles usually place women in a helpless position i.e. the damsel in distress. With most of the strong character traits given to the male characters. It is only recently that the industry is starting to see the error in its ways.
• Over sexualized female characters are not only threats to women, but also to younger males who are being exposed to them.

Conclusions:

• Companies like Crystal Dynamics have addressed the past errors of the Tomb Raider franchise and rebuild the Lara Croft character turning her into a role model rather than a sex symbol marketed to young men. With character like the new Lara Croft female gamers now have a building block to the start of more positive female heroes in game title.
• More positive female character could also lead to growth for certain companies that could begin marketing games more towards women. Positive female characters could also lead mothers, the gatekeepers of the household, to be more willing to buy certain titles because of the positive messages their children would receive from them.

LEGO: Success Made Simple

• LEGO was in major financial trouble in the early 2000s, despite being a top-10 toy producer in the world.
• Some thought it was the diversified business practices and side businesses that LEGO had, but in fact it was a near ancient supply chain system where LEGO was losing its money.
• LEGO has since recovered with a revamp supply chain and positive co-branded products, like their LEGO Batman and LEGO Star wars licensed products. 

Conclusions:

• With solid product release tactics LEGO has benefited from its co-branded products like it’s LEGO Batman, which released right after box office giant “The Dark Knight Rises”.
• By aligning themselves with classic brands like Marvel comics, I predict LEGO will continue a successful summer financial run with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes being released right in the middle of multiple Marvel Studios movie titles being released at the box office.

LEGO: Success Made Simple

LEGO logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

LEGO, the popular toy company based out of Denmark, has been a staple to millions of people’s childhoods since its inception in the mid 20^th century. In 2003, however, the world’s top 5 toy producer was in a lot of financial trouble. Some blamed it on the fact that they were stretching their means to far to video game development and amusement park constructions, but the key issue was their supply chain management. Once it was made clear that this was the issue that was driving LEGO’s poor financial engine, they set out to fix this broken system, all while using the sales of their video games to push the company out of it’s difficult economic state.

 

Since then LEGO has experienced great success. From 2009-2011 LEGO increased its market share from 4.8% to 5.9% of the global toy market, making it the world’s fourth largest toy manufacturer. With profit numbers like $1 billion of product sold in the US alone and a net increase of profit around 69%, the question now has become what has made the recover of LEGO so successful while other toy companies are still struggling?

 

Well, after reading articles like the Economist’s “Bricks and Flicks” it is clear to me that the video game division of LEGO has been driving profits and increasing the enjoyment of the consumers. Over the past decade LEGO has developed a number of co-branded products with other companies like Lucas Films, Disney, and DC Comics. Through these licensing arrangements LEGO has created it’s classic toy building products along with video games like “Star Wars LEGO”. By doing this LEGO has given its customers the ability to enjoy their products in both the real and virtual worlds, which increases the overall value of the product and experiences as a whole.

 

What really has made the difference though, was the chosen time for each of the products release. Last years “LEGO Batman 2” was released just after the box office hit “The Dark Knight Rises” and after 2012 was wrapped up, it was #9 on the top 10 selling games of that year. With simple gameplay and family friendly story telling the video games in the LEGO world have caught the attention of almost every one in the industry. The game designs are built in a world entirely built by LEGOs with characters designed straight from the LEGO character roster available to consumers in the classic LEGO plastic forms. With all of these designs out there it has made the game easier to make given that concrete designs are already available to the developers. With all this design time taken care of, LEGO has had more time to focus on story lines and puzzles that keep every new LEGO game more enjoyable than the previous one.

 

With the summer of 2013 slowly creeping in we can expect another line up of big movies at the box office and once again we can expect LEGO to plan ahead for their summer release of  “LEGO Marvel Super Heroes”. Having had experience with the DC Comic Universe, LEGO now will be testing the waters with the other comic book giant, Marvel Comics. This summer Marvel will be releasing a new Wolverine installment, Iron Man 3, and Thor 2: Dark World, and what do you know all the Marvel characters in these movies will be playable characters in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes!!! As we can now see LEGO has set out on its mission once again to expand the consumers experience with the characters we have grown to love. Expanding on the experience we get from watching our favorite characters at the box office to enjoying the family friendly toy products and giving consumers the ability to play as these character in a familiar virtual world, LEGO has set out to broaden the experience for consumers, all while increasing the value of their brand and generating positive financials.

 

I leave you now with a video of how the LEGO development team addresses the issue of doing justice to the Marvel brand and how they create a new LEGO video game that expands the user experience from previous LEGO titles. Enjoy!

 

Feminism & The Video Game Industry

No longer can we ignore the fact that women play just as many video games as their male counter parts. Whether they are playing bejeweled, words with friends, or draw something, these are all considered video games and when they play with their friends or anonymous gamers on their phones they are technically playing online. A recent survey completed by Doritos found that 49% of women play video games compared to 50% of men and they even found that women tend to play online games more than men. Some women even enjoy playing their online games more than having sex!!

With recent research like this taking place and disproving the fact that boys are the only one that play video games, what does this mean for the industry as a whole? Well its hard to deny that the industry has been a very sexist since its inception, and with an abundance of macho male lead characters and helpless damsels needing rescue, we might start to see a change in the way characters are portrayed especially women.

Characters like Lara Croft from the Eidos series “Tomb Raider” might just be the best example of how women are poorly portrayed. With her high kaki shorts, tight t-shirt and extremely large breast Lara is a mix between a Barbie Doll and a gun toting badass. But is this really the best way to empower a woman in video games. Even though I’ve played all of the early Tomb Raider titles I do believe that the way the industry is heading and the negative messages that overly sexualized characters like Lara Croft tend to portray need to be toned down and developers need to focus on more on creating positive role models that will empower the women that play the game rather than strictly focusing on double D’s and duel desert eagles.

With that being said that is exactly what Crystal Dynamics has done with their recent reboot release of the Tomb Raider franchise. Rather than creating a sex symbol version of Indiana Jones, Crystal Dynamics decided to create a “realistic and relatable person”. While some sexism still exist in the title, with bandits stranded on an island being overly suggestive in the beginning of the game, this all soon fades away once the bad guys realize what a threat Lara has become.

Now in the grand scheme of things this is just one tiny step, but for Lara Croft this is a giant leap. By this change in character portrayal Lara has become not only a lead hero in a title once again, but also a positive role model that any woman could enjoy playing as. But Tomb Raider is just one game, what about the industry as a whole? Is there anything women who enjoy video games can do to change the way how the industry works?

Well in a recent Forbes article written by Gabrielle Toledano, executive vice president and chief talent officer of Electronic Arts, explains how women can get involved in the industry that is in desperate need for their talents. To explain how to get involved Gabrielle first describes the three dirty little secrets of the video game industry:

• Women play games – a lot of them
• The video game industry wants to hire more women
• There aren’t enough to hire… yet

First women need to admit that they are in fact gamers, whether its games on Facebook or simply Rock Band on their home consoles. Second the success of a video game titles depends on diversity, since all titles are built and developed by teams, diversity fuels greater teamwork experiences and more diverse characterizations. Third more women in the engineering and technological fields must think of the game developing jobs out there as more satisfying and rewarding f options, and need to think of these industry jobs as a more viable career opportunity. With these three secrets now revealed it is now up to women to cease the opportunity for a rewarding and impacting career.

I leave you now with a video by Anita Sarkeesian, an author whom has focused much of her professional career on feminism and the much-needed change in the video game industry. With the video’s focus mostly on the history of the damsel in distress and the lack of female hero characters within video game titles, Anita takes us on a very informative ride through the history of feminism and industry practices. Enjoy!!!

High Score Business’s Key Links for the Week

• Gameinformer’s article that explains 2K sports announcement that their NBA 2K13 title has broken records for its previous installments of the title.
• Forbes’s article on the top-10 selling titles for 2012 and an overall outlook on industry health and future forecasts.
• Ripten shows us “Blast from the Past: SEGA Master System Ads”, a look back on the past advertising campaigns for SEGA.
• Failbetter games and the story behind the company that brought you the popular browser game burying London.
• Wii Sports was a game that came with the Nintendo Wii that was designed for the casual gamer. Bringing motion capturing along with a simple controller Nintendo revolutionized the industry standard.
• Forbes’s article explains how the fast expansion of the video game industry and the use of popular cultural story arcs have propelled the video game industry to have more of a cultural impact on society than movies.

Week II: Recap

In the second week of “High Score Business” we wrapped up Positive Examples & Analyzing Situations along with our Persuading Readers posts for the week.

Post #1: 2K Sports: Sole Control of the Virtual Basketball Market  (April 8)

• In this post Mr. Shiver discussed the internal factors that have made 2K sport’s NBA title “NBA 2K13” the only NBA basketball simulation on the market in 2013.
• Though quality development the physics systems of NBA 2K13 were so smooth and pleasing to users that all other titles from other developers were scrapped.
• With star power from Jay-Z, 2K sports was able to create a great in-game soundtrack and convince longtime hold outs to take lower compensations for the creation of the greatest virtual basketball experience to date. All of these factors contributed to 2K sports record-breaking year for its NBA title.

Post #2: The Cool-ness of Innuendo (April 9)

• In this post Mr. Collin digs up advertisements executed in the 1980’s by SEGA Master System in order to obtain a higher market share, which was a time in the early beginnings of the industry.
• With crude humor ads focused on a target market of young male adults SEGA set out to make consumers believe it was the “edgier” and “cooler” system to buy.
• While these messages successfully reached the target markets they did not result in higher market share. Instead Nintendo was able to maintain its position on top because parents were the ones buying the systems and did not want to expose their children to a console that had adult advertising.

Post #3: The Rise of Social Media (April 10)

• In this post Mr. Scheffler talks about how the social aspect of gaming has changed over the years with the shift from public arcades to consoles that consumers enjoy in their own homes.
• With massive online networks dedicated to connecting players from all over the world the interactive experiences these gamers have has advanced into a massive online social network.
• Also by utilizing networks like Facebook and Twitter companies like Failbetter Games have allowed users to enjoy games along side their friend they have on their social media sites.

Post #4:  Nintendo: Turning Video Games into Money Machines (April 11)

• In this post Mr. Yang changes our opinion on video games development as a once thought fools errand.
• Using Nintendo’s past business actions as proof that all it takes is one companies vision to revive or and increase ones market share Mr. Yang highlights the decisions that made Nintendo what it is today.
• With products like the “Robotic Operating Buddy” and the “Wii” Nintendo has a history of creating family friendly products that have appealed to consumers no matter their generation or experience as gamers.

Post #5: Video Games: Cultural Impact that Surpasses the Movies (April 12)

• In this post Mr. Shiver discusses the cultural impact of video games and how they have already surpassed the impact of movies.
• With references to a recent Forbes article Mr. Shiver explains how video games have duplicated the successful common story arcs of cinema and literature and turned it into their success.
• On profits alone it is shown that opening weeks for video game releases far surpass the opening weeks of movies at the Box Office.
• Lastly by giving users control of in-game decisions they are more likely to achieve a higher level of satisfaction based on Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”.

Hope this week has been informative and entertaining !!!

Video Games: Cultural Impact that Surpasses the Movies

After reading the Forbes article, “ Why Video Games Are More Addictive And Bigger Than Movies Will Ever Be” I realized that in fact because of the authors outlined reasoning, we may be moving into a generation where video games have more of a cultural impact than the movies do. In the article, author Christopher Correa, outlines his reasoning behind these idea with three key topics, which includes all stories are the same, by the numbers, and the (meta) physics of video games. Along with focusing much of his examples on the theories of Tobias Batton the author takes us on a journey explaining how these three topics will be the reasoning behind the cultural shift in influences.

By focusing on the similar stories that have filled humanities literature and films over the past century we are shown that all the stories have been nearly identical in terms key plot elements that drive the plot.

Here are three example from key popular stories that the author used in the Forbes article.

• “Our hero, Luke Skywalker, lives an uninspiring life before meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi who ushers him into the fantastic world of the Galaxy. The hero learns of an evil plot to terrorize and control the Galaxy and masters the Force in order to prepare for this conflict, ultimately triumphing by defeating Emperor Palpatine.”

• “Our hero, Neo, lives an uninspiring life before meeting Morpheus who ushers him into the fantastic world of Zion. The hero learns of an evil plot to enslave humans and masters the manipulation of reality in order to prepare for this conflict, ultimately triumphing by defeating the Machines.”

As you can see just from these two examples many of the stories that become our popular culture have the same foundations that have been used in story telling for centuries. Through this proven model of success video games have tried to follow what movies have done in the development of their own story arcs. Whether its the introduction scene in Mario with Princess Peach being kidnapped or John Marston realizing a greater calling to undo the evil of his past ways in “Red Dead Redemption” most successful games in recent years have had hero characters and story arcs that all have followed these proven models.

Unlike movies and literature, what games are able to do is give users the ability to change these story arcs to their own choosing. Instead of being the full on hero, gamers can choose to become an anti-hero that better fits to their own enjoyment of the game. While the main story of John Marston in Red Dead Redemption follows the parameters of the similar story arcs used in the past, the users in-game choices has an effect on their character in the story arc.

The video below on Red Dead Redemption, explains how a gamers in game decisions and actions will effect John Marston:

Purely from a profit stand point the numbers in recent years haven’t lied. Opening weekend for a video game is exponentially more profitable than opening week for a movie. Avatar in 2009 opened with $232 million, while Modern Warfare 2 sold $550 million its first week released. Even though a new console game like Modern Warfare 2 goes for $60 and a movie ticket goes for around $8 these numbers can’t be ignored.

What isn’t mentioned in the Forbes article that I also realized is that the video games are being enjoyed in ones own home for hours and hours with out the massive overhead of having brick and mortar that movie theaters require. Making the cost of getting them to the consumers even lower than any Hollywood box office success.

Most recently 2012 biggest Box Office success “The Avengers” compared to that years highest grossing game Black Ops 2:

The next point that needs to be made based on Batton’s theory is that operant conditioning plays a key role in game design because games give users an interactive role in in-game decision making that movies can not replicate. “It is for this reason that games are better tools and a more effective form of psychological learning.”

Could this be why countless companies use virtual reality trainers to train their employees? I like to think so because not only is it more cost effective to train a pilot in a flight simulator than putting him in an actual plane, but it is through this virtual reality that environments can be controlled giving specific situational training that is hard to replicate in real world situations. This is also why the army has invested money in games such as Socom: Navy Seals, for the benefit of training and entertaining troops while they are over seas.

Finally by focusing on Maslow’s, “Hierarchy of Needs” the author shows us how when a video game focuses on all the aspect of the Hierarchy they successfully meet the needs of users.

Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”:

Role playing games, especially, are able to hit on a lot of these aspects, which helps give gamers a wide range of satisfaction from their in-game interactions. Games like Skyrim allow users to go as far as marry other characters along with many other decisions that bring one’s own morality into play.

While movies will always hold a special place in my heart it is hard to over look the expansion of video games into our culture. With the immense interactive decisions that gamers control, enjoyment and the overall value of these products are growing within our culture. Either way you look at it the development and advancement in the industry has made an everlasting mark on society that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon.

2K Sports: Sole Control of the Virtual Basketball Market

Ever since 2006, when 2K sports first released its NBA licensed basketball game “NBA 2K6”, it has delivered a quality product to consumers that eventually pushed past industry leaders, like EA sport’s “NBA Live” franchise completely out of the market. NBA 2K13 earned its spot in 2012 as the #6 highest selling game of 2012, and with 2K13 still breaking sales records  as we speak it has been through internal quality of product, business practices, and development that has earned 2K sports the now lone top spot in a highly profitable industry.

Over the years 2K sports has aligned a range of celebrities that have actually gone into 2K sports studios to capture their very own basketball skills. Musicians like ?uest Love(the Roots), Phife Dawg (A Tribe Called Quest), and the one and only Justin Bieber have graced the 2K sports studios presence and were then included as bonus playable celebrity characters in game content. Not only does this increase the value of the product to the consumers it also increase the value to the musicians that have not only provided their songs for the soundtrack, but also their virtual likeness. To those musicians that have helped create the product they now can enjoy playing as themselves, which I’m sure gives 2K sports a valuable bargaining chip during music licensing negotiations.

Not only did 2K sports include these celebrity teams this year, but they also signed on Jay-Z as producer for the games soundtrack. With his wide musical knowledge he was able to craft a 19-track list that has a wide variety of music beyond Jay-Z and genres common hip-hop music them.

10 tracks from the 19 track soundtrack shows the diversity in music:

• Jay-Z: “Pump It Up Freestyle”
• Santogold: “Shove It”
• Justice: “Stress”
• Phoenix: “1901”
• Kanye West (featuring Young Jeezy): “Amazing”
• Too Short: “Blow the Whistle”
• U2: “Elevation”
• Jay-Z (featuring Kanye West): “The Bounce”
• Eric B. & Rakim: “I Ain’t No Joke”
• Diddy (featuring Notorious B.I.G., Busta Rhymes): “Victory”

A commercial that aired before the release of NBA 2K13 is listed below:

A recent Vibe article actually goes into detail of all the things we can be thankful to Jay-Z for, which made 2K13 the best virtual basketball experience to date. What stood out most in my mind was the fact that he final got the entire 1992 USA Dream Team to sign on board to license there images and likeness. Using his Star Power Jay-Z was able to reach out to long time hold outs like Charles Barkley and convincing them that if they could agree on lower compensations then 2K sports could afford to include all the necessary players for the ultimate experience. This sacrifice finally gave users the ability to join in on the question of “Who would win if the 1992 team were to face off against the 2012 team?” and argument that Kobe Bryant sparked during the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The excitement of NBA 2K13 has even made users create their own videos like this one to finally settle the debate:

When it comes down to it if you have played NBA 2K13, you realize that it is the development and countless hours they spend in the motion capturing studios that really makes it a quality brand, so much so that consumers haven’t settled for less. This has caused other titles like EA sports long time running title NBA Live to scrap its efforts in recent years, while focusing on other titles.  Either way it seems that 2K sports has found a perfect system that continues to please consumers and create record breaking profits.

I leave you now with an entertaining video of Shaquille O’Neil in the 2K sports motion-capturing studio for NBA 2K7. Enjoy!

Week 1: Recap

In the first week we launched “High Score Business: The Keys to Success in the Video Game Industry“

Post #1: Introduction to High Score Business (April 1)

• In this post Robert Shiver explained the goals and objectives that the blog will set out to achieve.
• Also, outlines of each group members expertise and what topics they will be focusing on.

Post #2: Digital Distribution Sale (April 2)

• In this post William Scheffler describes the changing marketplace and how it has affected the video game industry.
• By outlining the changes from brick and mortar transaction to transactions in the digital marketplaces, like iTunes ,Mr. Scheffler shows how the changes in purchasing habits might affect the future of the industry sales.

Post #3: Electronic Arts and the Storm that Ravaged SimCity (April 3)

• In this post Zhenghua Yang goes into detail about the recent launch of SimCity by long time video game developer Electronic Arts.
• By requiring Internet access for all customers SimCity has left itself vulnerable to dissatisfied customers that might want to enjoy the game offline because there is no need for internet access  for a title that has no online multiplayer options.
• Although this has been the practice of many companies in recent years, it is has also left many companies at the will of their own servers, which often crash or become overloaded with in the games first days after being released. Leaving handfuls of dissatisfied customers.

Post #4: “Make Love Not WarCraft” & Celebrity Marketing

• In this post Robert Shiver describes the co-branding that occurred when Blizzard Entertainment decided to incorporate their title “World of Warcraft” into an episode of Comedy Central’s South Park.
• This was a major gamble for the family friendly gaming company because of the offensive nature of the shows creators. But after winning an Emmy for the episode the gamble seemed to pay off.
• Also, Mr. Shiver discusses the recent marketing strategies for WoW and how with the help of celebrities from multiple generations they have successful created a marketing strategy that was able to reach  a diverse  group of consumers, which has helped keep revenue rolling in for the highest grossing game in history

Post #5: Edifying the Public: Wieden and Kennedy’s Community Involvement

• In this post Leslie Collin describes the inner workings of advertising giant Wieden and Kennedy.
• In the post Mr. Collin outlines the “Find Your Greatness” campaign, which has set out to educate adults and youth on the dangers of a physically inactive life style.
• With technology moving fast and creating shortcuts for us to expend less energy, Wieden and Kennedy states that this inactivity could shorten our lifespan by up to 5 years and so they created this campaign as a proactive approach to educate the public of what needs to be done to counter this dilemma.

“Make Love Not WarCraft” & Celebrity Marketing

In 2006, Blizzard Entertainment, the game development company responsible for titles like Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo, helped create an episode in South Park’s 10^th season called “Make Love Not WarCraft”. Unlike most South Park episodes this episode used in game animations from Blizzard’s mass multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) “World of WarCraft”. Nearly half of this episode was actually shot within one of Blizzards active serves, all while other players were still playing the game. During the episode the South Park kids were set out to level up their characters to challenge a player that was such a high level that “he could be the end of the World…of WarCraft”.

 

The episode is quite hilarious and is a very good example of a cobranded product that was made for the benefit of both South Park and Blizzard Entertainment. Shortly after its airing in 2007, the episode won the “Prime Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program”, which became the shows second Emmy Award at that time. What the creators of South Park, University of Colorado graduates Trey Parker and Matt Stone, found surprising was that Blizzard was on board to help make the episode. This is because much of the episode hints at the fact that the better and more powerful one’s character is in the World of WarCraft the more likely they are to having “no life”. Over the course of the episode as the South Park kids characters become higher levels the fatter and more grotesque they appear. This sight does not really shed a good light on WoW players, but in the sense that any press is good press it achieved its goal of increased exposer for Blizzard’s game and shortly after WoW became the highest grossing game in the history of games with over 10 million subscribed users.

South Park has a history of being highly offensive and much of that has attributed to its success over the years, but when other companies are given the chance to cobrand a product with a company like South Park most would pass it up, as not to offend their already loyal fan base. So what Blizzard did here was a major gamble and as we have seen over the years it paid off with dividends. When South Park finally released its season 10 on DVD the cover had images from the “Make Love Not Warcraft Episode”, as well as, a trial game disc for consumers who had yet to experience the World of Warcraft.

Since then WoW has dropped in popularity, but still currently maintains over 10 million subscribers. With a fee of around $15 dollars a month per user this means that Blizzard brings in around $150 million in revenue every month just from subscriptions alone. To maintain these numbers Blizzard has implemented a marketing campaign using a wide range of celebrities to reach out to the many generations of its users, including celebrities like Jean Claude Van Damme, Ozzy Osbourne, Mr. T, Chuck Norris and most recently Aubrey Plaza. With each of these celebrities reaching the height of their popularity in a different decade Blizzard has been able to diversify its exposer to its target consumers.

My favorite among these commercials is the one with Chuck Norris because it focuses its message with the recent Chuck Norris facts that have immortalized him to a younger generation that might not have realized his first screen appearance was fighting legendary kung fu master Bruce Lee in 1972. Clever commercials like this one have helped maintain WoW’s popularity over the years and kept the money rolling in for what is the most profitable game in the history of video games.

An Introduction to: HIGH SCORE BUSINESS

 

     High Score Business     

Welcome to High Score Business!

This blog is dedicated to the inner workings and business practices of the video game industry. Over the course of the next two months this blog will set out to educate young professionals and potential investors on the economic health of the industry leaders, as well as, focusing on the trendsetter companies that have used technological innovations to make their mark in the industry. Topic will include technological innovations, intellectual properties, co-branding, social media, and marketing practices. With an intellectual look at the past we will also see how certain companies have set themselves up for success and how other have stumbled to their failures. We all hope you take a seat back and enjoy the adventure that is High Score Business!!!

The four administrators and their responsibilities are listed as follows:

Zhenghua Yang

• Products Development and Industry Innovations
• Mr. Yang will focus on new developments within the industry, as well as, past innovations and the economic and social impacts of them.

Leslie Collin

• Marketing and Advertising Practices
• Mr. Collin will be using his experience with public relations and marketing to outline the advertising and social media practices for the industry leaders.

William Scheffler

• Licensing and Intellectual Property
• Mr. Scheffler will be focusing on the intellectual property and legal process that goes into two brands converging into one product.

Robert Shiver

• Financials and Chief Editor
• Mr. Shiver will look at the financial inputs that go into the various projects in the video game industry and how these inputs affect the economic health of the brands they represent.
• Mr. Shiver will also serve as editor for the post of other members.

With such an incredible amount of information out there in the industry, we hope that by dividing each of our time into different business operation categories we will be able to shine a brighter light on all aspects of the business that is the video game industry.