Business game. Marketing. Methodological development of a binary lesson-game “Marketing Research” (for the disciplines “Marketing”) methodological development on the topic Business game on marketing for students examples

To understand what it is game marketing and what it is eaten with, in this article we will talk about the following issues:

- What is game marketing like?
- How it started;
- How it changed;
- Why today we have the kind of game marketing that we have;
- What awaits us in the future: how marketing will change, how markets will change.

The material was prepared on the basis open lecture by Sergei Zykov on game marketing, which took place as part of our educational program “Management of Internet Gaming Projects” at VSBI. If interested, welcome to cat.

What is marketing?

But one of the best is the definition given by the “father” of theoretical marketing, Philip Kotler:

“Marketing is the art and science of targeting your market, attracting, retaining and growing customers by making customers feel confident that they represent the highest value to the company.”

This definition contains the whole essence of marketing in its classical sense. The art of making the consumer feel like they really matter. Understand that it is the consumer who is at the head of the marketing chain. And be able to create that very notorious value in his mind. Which, by the way, may not exist anywhere except his consciousness.

But the world is changing. It is changing at an astonishing rate. A different rhythm of life, different habits, general globalization, an increased speed of decision-making in the context of an almost limitless choice of options - all this leads to the fact that the consumer is no longer “the same as before” (senile grunting can be heard in the background). And our gaming market is subject to constant change more than many others! New trends, gaming hardware that allows us to realize what seemed impossible just a year ago, thousands of games entering the market every day - we rush forward at such a speed that sometimes we manage to run somewhere before we understand why we ran in the first place. AND Game marketing is forced to constantly change– solutions that worked well several years ago are now inferior to their current counterparts. New marketing channels, limitless analytics capabilities, traffic purchasing, opinion leaders who have grown out of nowhere and the dominance of social networks - this is what marketing works with today. But it is possible that tomorrow this will again not be enough. After all, consumers continue to change.

The market is expanding day by day. The capabilities (and desires) of players have grown. Just 8-10 years ago, the choice of platform was decisive; players were practically encouraged to “make a choice” between one game or another. And now, if you believe the heartless statistics, the majority play on two or three platforms. It's normal: Play MMOPRG on your PC, play match-3 on the way to work, and feed the pigs on your farm in the office instead of preparing a presentation for a client.

And what we have at the moment:

• Huge audience, unevenly divided between platforms
• Different values ​​important to players depending on the platform
• Fierce competition (especially in the Mobile/PC segments)
• High development cost (Console)
• Limited time/monetary resources of the player
• High degree of satiety

And all this, willy-nilly, should be taken into account and regulated by who? That's right, the same marketers who are hated by game designers and disliked by producers.

And marketing is changing - just as it has changed along with the market all the time.

A brief excursion into history: Just 8 years ago, both the market and marketing looked completely different than they do now.

• The developers focused on product quality
• Actively invested in the development of game franchises
• No F2P, only hardcore!
• The game was released on 1-2 platforms
• And it depended heavily on the physical presence of the product on the market

And marketing at that time was completely different:

• Long marketing cycle (from the moment the game was announced to release it often took more than three years)
• Traditional promotion channels (mainly specialized resources, including the printed press)
• The high role of PR (how else can you keep your audience in suspense for three years?)
• The importance of designing game sales points
• The huge role of franchises and brand awareness

The market shook, and the usual model of work began to crack and crumble before our eyes. Because F2P was based on a completely different model of making money! The game was given to the user for free - and then the main task was “take out” money from it for in-game goodies and bonuses. This radically changed the entire approach to marketing such games. In addition, a huge audience who had not played before decided to “try” - they still don’t ask for money! She tried it and she liked it. And I also had to work with her.

And marketing has become different:

- Marketing began to count and analyze everything that happens
- Digital channels have become the main channels. Traditional media began to yield on a number of indicators
- Efficiency began to be assessed in what it should: the number of money earned/users attracted
- The concept of “consumer” has become fractional – “player”, “donor”, ​​“subscriber”, “social worker”, etc.
- We learned new words: “monetization”, CPI, LTV, and other reengagement, attribution...

All this has become extremely popular when working with new platforms - browser, social games, and mobile games that have begun to gain weight. Especially the last ones! After all, by this moment:

- Technologies made it possible to provide a fairly acceptable picture with the available system resources
- The cost of smartphones has become low enough that many can afford them
- Unified platforms for games on mobile devices have appeared (Appstore, Google Play)

And the market has evolved again.

Activation of mobile development brought us:

• A huge new audience of people who have never played AT ALL before (“snake” and “minesweeper” do not count)
• A sharp increase in the number of developers for mobile platforms
• New game mechanics

What is this? In a nutshell (okay, a little more than two):

• Result-oriented marketing – increasing sales.
• A distinctive feature: the ability to see a specific quantitative indicator at all stages of work, which will reflect the result of the work of each individual marketing area.
• Based on clearly and unambiguously measured parameters.
• Constantly analyzes received traffic
• Key metrics: ROI, ROMI, CPA, CPI, CR, CTR, LTV and other scary words

It was at this point that the concept of “buying traffic” appeared in game marketing. This made it possible to attract a huge number of people to games - but also lowered the quality bar for the games being developed. It probably couldn’t have been any other way.

Judge for yourself: A new market (of mobile games), with a low entry price, a fairly budgetary (at first) cost of an attracted player - and a not yet saturated audience! The speed of development and the number of games began to prevail over quality. And the market really made it possible to make money even on projects of extremely average quality.

That is why today we have the following picture of the market:

• The focus has shifted towards the audience rather than the product.
• New promotion channels have appeared: social networks, bloggers/YouTubers, “viral” distribution, etc.
• New methods of calculating/evaluating efficiency: LTV, ROI, CPI - F2P forced to change the entire approach to evaluating the effectiveness of certain solutions
• “Purchasing traffic” has become the most effective method of promoting products – traditional marketing has “lost ground”
• New time frames - product promotion begins shortly before release, the marketing activity cycle has become much shorter
• An abundance of clones and games of the same type - development follows the principle of “copy what we get”

Here's what marketing for the games of tomorrow will look like, according to Sergei:

There is nothing particularly to be happy about: working in this market will not become easier or simpler. Traffic will continue to become more expensive (and why not, if there is still demand?), and the barrier to entry into the market for the “average” will continue to rise. One way or another, those who refuse to die will be forced to focus on those aspects of their games that are openly skimped on today:

Product Focus

The future lies in high-quality, interesting projects for people (Your Captain is with you again, yes. But if you knew how many developers ignore this simple and seemingly well-known statement)
Copying successful competitors will no longer work. The Clonic War must end. (We are all adults and understand perfectly well that individual solutions, original finds and proven schemes will be shamelessly used by everyone around us - this is normal, why reinvent the wheel if someone has already worked before you. But “rip off a carbon copy” of the game, changing the graphics and name will no longer be so profitable. We remind you: our audience is fed up with the same type of projects).
Games for people, not people for games. (Start making games for your audience - and choosing this same audience at the initial stage of development. And don’t make a game “for men 35+”, and then frantically look for someone who would be well suited to it using test campaigns in MyTarget).
Quality. Originality. Interest. Everything that cannot be bought with traffic and returned through remarketing. (Accept that you can’t win the race for traffic, unless of course you have several million dollars hidden in your sock).

And here marketing can (and should) actively participate in the work on the game. How? Yes, at least (at least):

Help identify the game's audience
Conduct research on the selected market
Even at the development stage, start forming a community
Work together with development, helping to avoid the “pissing against the wind syndrome”

Working with brands/creating your own brands

Business does not end with the game itself. Look at the sales volume of Rovio merchandise and licensed products. Check out Wargaming's non-game store. And if you thought that this was “fun for large companies,” then look at the “Papers, Please” and FTL merchandise at the same time. These guys understand perfectly well that you can make money from your project in different ways.

And let your marketing help you with this:

Looking for new channels for brand development
Forming a brand strategy and implementing it
Creating a brand image

Building relationships with players

Remember that the audience is not only a “paying” audience, see behind the numbers real people who like (or don’t yet) your game. Look at how RIOT Games implements its marketing - believe me, when they say that they work for the players, they really do it. And judging by League of Legends' position in the world, it's paying off. Finally Google what Relationship marketing is :-)

Using new, effective marketing channels

New times - new promotion channels
Streamers/video bloggers are a new media of a new generation. Use it!
If PewDiePie makes games, then why can't game developers make good streams?! But only good ones :-)
Remember the lessons of Tom Sawyer - he was able to turn his punishment into interesting entertainment for others, and even got richer from it!

Lesson objectives:

1. Repeat and consolidate the material covered in the form of a game.

2. Intensify the study and consolidation of economic concepts, definitions, and terms.

3. Familiarize yourself with the competitive selection procedure, integrate the knowledge gained in economics and entrepreneurship lessons.

4. Develop creative thinking, reaction to situational situations, the ability to formulate and specify answers to questions.

5. Foster objectivity in self-esteem, the spirit of competition, the desire for self-affirmation, and competitiveness in the labor market.

6. Formation of an unbiased attitude towards entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship in a market economy, and communication skills.

Equipment and equipment of the game: paper, paints, markers, glue, tokens for drawing lots, envelopes with assignments, protocol forms for the jury, student self-control cards.

Interdisciplinary connections: economics, technology (professional self-determination), fundamentals of entrepreneurship, psychology, law.

Stages of the game.

1. Preparatory stage. In the previous lesson, students were introduced to new professions in a market economy. Game participants should be prepared to introduce these professions during the game according to the following scheme:

• What does a specialist in this profession do?
• What knowledge and education does he need?
• What professionally important qualities are required for successful work?
• Where can he work?

2. Start of the game. Organizing time. Introductory speech by the presenter (introduction, purpose and course of the game). Jury presentation.

3. Drawing lots and dividing students into two teams.

4. Competition of professions.

5. Assignment to teams for a creative competition by drawing lots.

6. Presentation of competition works. Determination of the winning team (jury) in the creative competition.

7. Selection of the general manager of the company (one representative from the team).

8. Press conference of 2 candidates for the position of general manager of the company.

9. Summing up the results of the management competition (jury).

10. Lesson summary. Filling out the student self-control card.

BEGINNING OF THE GAME

1. Opening remarks by the presenter.

Dear friends, today in class you are invited to take part in a business game. A business game assumes that you take the rules of the game and the possible life circumstances offered to you seriously. The success of the game depends on your ability to embody the proposed life roles and accept the proposed situation. Today you will have the opportunity to show your entrepreneurial, organizational, communication and creative abilities.

So, the world-famous advertising company Alyonushka International is expanding. Marketing analysts, having studied the situation in competing companies, drew up a long-term project to open branches in different countries. We invite you to take part in the competition to fill vacant positions of specialists to work in newly opened branches.

You all want to get a job in this company. We will have a hiring committee (jury). You need to convince the commission to offer the vacancy to you.

Make up a legend for yourself and, when applying for a job, tell us why you want to work in this company, where you worked before, and what you can do. Also formulate an idea that you might be interested in the company. Try to convince the committee members of the value of your candidacy for the company.

Let me introduce the competent jury consisting of: ... .

2. To work, students are divided into two teams(based on tokens received at the beginning of the game).

Warm-up teams complete the task:

• They will prepare a project for creating a branch (they will come up with its name, basic principle or motto).
• They will propose a worthy candidate for a manager for the position of executive director of the company.

At the end of the game, a pre-election press conference of candidates for this important position will be held.

(5 minutes)

3. Group work.

Filling vacancies for branch specialists - (chief accountant, economist; manager; programmer; designer, artist; advertising specialist; marketer, sales agent, sales consultant; psychologist; technical editor; legal adviser).

To do this: the presenter names a vacant position, finds out the number of applicants for this vacancy, the applicants take turns introducing themselves as a specialist, creating a legend (presentation time - 1 minute for each participant). The jury determines the best in each specialty.

(25 min)

4. Carrying out a creative task in teams.

It is necessary to come up with an advertisement for domestic goods (which ones will be determined by lot. For example: Shoes from the Severokhod factory in Italy. Georgian tea in India. Cranberries in Brazil. Wool in Australia. Porcelain in China. Pasta from the Rushleb association in Italy. Agat computers in Japan. Buratino lemonade in Finland. Cosmetics from the Northern Lights company in France. Russian kvass in America. Zaporozhets cars in America), showing their creativity to the maximum. This could be a product in the form of a commercial, theatrical performance, fairy tale, etc. using drawings, poems, songs and, of course, humor. 20 minutes.

Present your creative work.

(10 min)

Teams select their candidate for the position of executive director of the company.

Team members prepare several tricky questions for the candidates' press conference (2-3 questions for each candidate from the other team).

5. Election campaign for the president of the company:

Applicants for the position of executive director of the company are invited to the stage and sit in the prepared seats. Then, in turn, each participant in the election campaign introduces himself, introduces his legend, and answers questions prepared by the other team.

(10 min)

6. Summing up the game.

The results of the jury's work are summed up and the winners are announced. (Each winner of the job competition brings 1 point to his team). The team winner of the creative competition is named. Employment contracts are presented.

(4 min)

7. Lesson summary. Filling out the student self-control card (Appendix 2).

Annex 1

PROTOCOL

profession competition

Appendix 2

LITERATURE

1. Firsov E.G. Economy. Intellectual games for schoolchildren. Yaroslavl “Academy of Development”, 1998.
2. M. Bendyukov, I. Solomin, D. Cherneyko. You and your profession. St. Petersburg, Publishing House ROST LLC, 2001.

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For years, electronic games have been open to sponsorship and product placement, and this is nothing new. However, recently there has been an explosion in the popularity of using games for branding. “This is the same idea as product placement in movies,” says Tony Lerner of RealArcade. “While the user is enjoying the game, a branded message is unobtrusively conveyed to him.”

But this is by no means advergames.

Advertising game developers do not try to fill the gaming space with logos and products of sponsors, but build the game around a brand or a specific marketing message. That is, you can’t just make a certain game and then stick a sponsor’s label on it. Advertising games are created specifically to promote the advertised product or service - as a very deep product placement with the possibility of feedback from the player.

“With these games, advertisers can connect with online audiences in a way that isn't dumb, direct or rude,” said Denis Garcia, senior media and advertising analyst at Gartner. “When people go online, they're looking for something meaningful and entertaining. Games give them that and this and that."

The main difference between an advertising game and regular entertainment is that the advertising game is made in the interests of the client. This imposes a lot of restrictions that are unfamiliar to ordinary game developers. First of all, these restrictions are related to the need to logically use the advertiser’s products and trademarks in the gameplay.

Method 4 STR

How to come up with cool gameplay? That is, make sure that the consumers your business needs voluntarily agree to start a marketing game and perform a certain chain of active actions that will lead to the desired result for themselves and for the brand?

Before you start developing a game, you need to understand what sets your brand apart from others, what message you want to convey to the user, and what is the best way to do it. That is, start by collecting facts and information. This is the first step.

The second step is to calculate possible scenario options based on the collected facts. What opportunities will the user have to interact with the product in the game?

The third step is to consider the effect of each option based on cause-and-effect relationships.

After this, you need to evaluate how the options will be perceived by the target audience. People may reject your ideas and you will have to go back to step two.

So the algorithm is:

1. Gathering facts

What marketing problems do you want to solve? What is the target audience? What values ​​does the brand profess? What decisions were made earlier, what advertising campaigns are already underway or have passed?

2. Offering alternatives

Let your imagination run wild. The options do not have to be directly related to the characteristics of the product itself (if a car is advertised, it is not at all necessary to make a racing simulator). Have an open discussion of options, without going into details, with a vision of the future.

3. Objective analysis

What are the causes and consequences of each alternative? Will it help strengthen the brand’s position and achieve its goals? Based on what criteria will the result of gaming communication be assessed? What resources (financial, time, professional) will be required for implementation?

4. Impact on players

Will people enjoy the game and play it? What associations and thoughts will they have after the game? What kind of reaction do you predict from competitors or fans of other brands? How will you manage the collected database of players?

These steps correspond to the four preference types from the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator:

• sensory skills at the information gathering stage (be accurate and realistic, think clearly),
• intuition at the stage of creating alternatives (be creative and look at the big picture),
• logic at the stage of analyzing different scenarios (don’t think about people - only business)
• ethics at the stage of testing on people (think about how the users involved in the communication will react to your actions).

Based on the first three letters of these preferences, I called this approach the “4 STRENGTHS method”, implying, however, that we do not forget about the fourth component - ethics.

For long-term stability, a minimum of three support points is required, but four is even better. The table and chair stand on four legs. So let's sit down at the negotiating table and think about how best to build great gaming communication.

Express segmentation

To quickly understand what audience your product or service is intended for, it is useful to conduct a deductive analysis of consumers, cut off everything unnecessary and thus determine the core of the audience. Based on this, you can make your marketing message more attractive and find the most effective communication channels.

This method works like this.

1. Start with the most significant characteristics of the audience that is important to you and ask “closed” questions in descending order of priority. Each subsequent question clarifies the previous one.
2. Each question has 2-3 answer options that are relevant specifically to your business. The number of questions is not limited by anything other than the degree of clarity. Once you understand that the kernel is defined, you can stop.

For example, you are going to offer gambling via mobile phone. Who is most likely to be interested in the game: a man or a woman? Let's say you think it's a man. Next question: how much does he spend on mobile communications per month - more or less than $30? Let's say more than $30 per month. What age is he? Due to legislation prohibiting the participation of minors in gambling - over 18 years of age. What is his education? Does he have a family? And so on.

Thus, we have found that the average mobile phone gambler is a man who graduated from a technical college or school, he spends more than $30 a month on mobile communications and has some income. Let's say he is a worker or trade worker.

This is a rough estimate, and of course, the actual consumer may differ from the portrait. But such an analysis gives a quick result, and on its basis it is possible to create initial models. Including game communication scenarios.

As a rule, even before creating a game, the advertiser understands his marketing task and guesses who the advertising message is aimed at. Otherwise, all that remains is to quote the Cheshire Cat: if it doesn’t matter where you go, “you’ll definitely end up somewhere, of course, if you don’t stop halfway.”

Fact collection continues

Often the customer asks: “How much will it cost?”, that is, he goes straight to the third step. Sometimes he asks to immediately send game scripts, which should happen in the second stage. But without collecting facts and information it is impossible to move forward.

Like any marketing campaign, a game project starts with defining what you want to achieve. Part 2 of this book was devoted to marketing tasks, so we won’t dwell on them for long, we’ll just say a few words. Set simple and clear goals for yourself. Don't try to achieve multiple goals at once (e.g., collect data, go viral, and drive sales). And think again: what marketing message should be left in the player's head after finishing the game?

The unique consumer properties of a product or sales offer are one of the main points when implementing an advertising game. It is on them that the plot and the game concept are built, it is they who make virtual manipulations with game items especially valuable for the consumer’s accumulation of experience in handling the advertised product and getting used to it.

The characteristics of both the service or idea itself, as well as distribution, pricing, pre- and post-sales service may be unique. Some products or films already contain game ideas, they just need to be highlighted and used. Advertising videos can also contain tips for the game communications developer.

If you remember the Snickers TV commercials where two guys on backhoes play tennis sideways, then you won't be surprised by the game "Don't Slow Down" for your mobile phone. While still throwing the drawn “barrels” with one hand, the player can successfully “snicker” a real chocolate bar with his free hand.

Another example of an ad idea turned into a game is "Xtreemal Skydiver" from Stimorol, posted on Yandex.Toys. The plot is simple - a guy with chewing gum deftly jumped from a mountain and landed in a convertible. The player had to move the car and catch the parachutist. The luckiest players received a "lifetime supply of chewing gum."

The process of developing a game campaign is similar to any other design work. Firstly, copywriters, analysts and other people who create a working concept for a promotion are limited by the scope of the tasks set by the client; secondly, limitations are imposed by technologies for presenting information through different communication channels. With all the wealth of possibilities and formats, the creative team must clearly understand which effective solutions are feasible, and what should be left behind due to the complexity of technical implementation.

An integral feature of game communications development is increased creativity, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

Be an idea aggregator

Ideas can be borrowed or invented.

There is nothing wrong with looking at ideas from others. Taking a peek and adapting it to your business are, as they say, two very different things. But the implemented ideas can make your product or service much more attractive to customers.

To borrow, you need to be a “Cheburashka” - have big ears and eyes and be open to the world. And also write everything down on time (for example, I always have a communicator at hand).

And to come up with ideas, you need to develop creativity - this is quite possible for everyone.

We won’t be able to provide a full-fledged training on creativity here, but I will describe several approaches. And for those who are interested, I can recommend Michael Mikalko’s book “Encyclopedia of Business Ideas”.

What if he was carrying cartridges?

Surely among your employees there are creative people who will enjoy using their brains. And it is useful for others to develop their imagination in an unobtrusive form. Try sending out periodic emails with a general "what if" message, changing the subject to suit aspects of your business.

What if:

— half of our customers will go to competitors?

— have a picnic during working hours?

— set the same prices for all goods?

— use games to increase sales?

— train dogs to deliver orders?

Of course, you shouldn’t turn this into an obligation. But it is worth encouraging those who think and answer. This way you can prepare for unforeseen situations, get ideas for business development and be able to identify creative employees.

Let's shuffle ideas

If you start randomly pulling cards from a shuffled deck, you will most likely end up with a random set. After doing this a second time, you will get a different set of cards - the number of options is very large. The more combinations you try, the higher the chance of getting a winning combination in your hands.

It’s the same with ideas - you can try to pull them out one by one, or you can create a “box of ideas” in which combinations of known parameters (“suit” and “dignity”) give new ideas.

The “Box of Ideas” was developed on the basis of the morphological block, described in detail by Fritz Zwicky in his work “Morphological Method of Analysis and Design”. The idea is to automatically combine task parameters to generate new ideas, where parameters are various factors, characteristics, variables and components.

In fact, the “idea box” is a table where the column names are parameters without which solving the problem at hand is impossible. And in the lines under each parameter a set of corresponding options is written.

The more parameters and variations, the more complex the “idea box” becomes. When the “box” is filled, you will have to connect the intersections of different columns and rows into chains, and surely some of them will lead you to new thoughts and a solution to the problem.

You can experiment with the “box of ideas” on the website www.playbook.ru in the “interactive” section. I hope you get a lot of new and useful ideas out of it!

Let's create an "idea box" and solve the example problem of creating a new product "cube(s)". What can a cube not exist without? Without the material from which it is made, without what is printed on its edges. You can also add the "quantity" parameter.

Now let's start combining.

One wooden cube with texts can be used for decision making. Typical answers such as “yes”, “no”, “wait” are plotted on the edges. All you have to do is ask a question, roll the dice and look at the random answer.

A glowing cube with a picture can become a cute night light for your baby.

Two “talking” cubes: if you put words-verbs (bite, kiss, pinch...) on one cube, and pictures (breasts, neck, lips...) on the other, you can use them as a prompt for ideas for love from 16 and older. By the way, these cubes are included in the “Expedition” sex set.

A few ice cubes with numbers can be added to cocktails. In addition to the fact that they have an original appearance, people at the same table will be able to play “for clicks” (if by this time they are able to compare the amounts). You can also put the establishment's logo on the ice cubes.

The cube with numbers can be edible or used to play with children "Who can eat their lunch faster": whichever number is rolled, the player can eat so many spoons. Everyone sitting at the table takes turns throwing the dice.

The more parameters and options you come up with, the more combinations you will get. But it will take longer to sift through truly workable and useful ideas.

Scenarios for interactive communications can also be compiled using an “idea box”. In the second stage of the "4 STR" method, I often use it.

Auspicious hours

Sometimes it is difficult to analyze all solution options at once. But you can concentrate on 2-3 parameters of the problem, consider them in detail and trace the associations that they cause.

Formulate the task.

Select 12 attributes related to your task. These may be related to color, weight, reliability, service style, game genre, etc.

Write each attribute on a sticky note and stick it to the round clock face at regular intervals. The hour and minute hands will point to two attributes. If you return to solving the problem at another time, the arrows will point to two other attributes.

Consider these attributes individually and in combination with each other - starting with the first spontaneous thought and following the branches of associations and analogies, from different angles of view on the subject area.

At some point you will catch a thought that will need to be isolated and developed separately. If you have chosen an attribute that is significant for your task, then the connections will grow very quickly.

If you want people to knock on your door at work and wait for permission to enter, hang a dart board on the door in your office. But seriously, instead of a watch dial, you can use darts to throw darts - for example, for:

• identifying the parameters of the situation using the method described above;
• random decision making (12 options);
• choosing the one who buys a cake to treat everyone “just because” (out of 12 names).

The opportunity circle can also be used to facilitate buyer choice. So, I proposed making a screensaver clock for the Ozone online store. In addition to the fact that they show the time while the computer is “resting,” you can place new items or the most popular product items automatically downloaded from the site in a circle. When looking at the monitor, the clock hands will point to certain books or disks. One “click” and the item is in the buyer’s cart.

A good creative developer “sees” the game even before writing the first line of the technical specifications. He can mentally “play” it without a computer, mobile phone or other players at all. “Will this help strengthen the brand’s position? Solve the assigned tasks? Based on what criteria will the result of gaming communication be assessed?” - all these questions must be answered, but already at the third stage.

2 Mikalko, M. "Encyclopedia of business ideas." Creativity training / Michael Mikalko. - M.: "Peter", 2003.

3 Zwicky, F. The morphological method of analysis and construction. — Courant, Anniversary Volume, 1948.

Play is an activity that permeates all human culture. The game is as old as humanity. Moreover, since ancient times, some types of games have been perceived as something extremely serious and attract the attention of a huge number of people. These are, for example, the Olympic Games. In ancient times, for the sake of them, wars between Greek city-states stopped, and now billions are invested in their preparation, and the results influence the policies of the participating states.

During the game, no products of activity are produced. However, quite a long time ago it became clear that very serious non-game problems can be solved with the help of games. That's why games came into business.

In the USSR, this happened in the 30s of the 20th century: in 1932, the first production game “starting up a workshop” was created. This game is described in detail by Lyudmila Smerkovich in the article “Very Business Games”. The game was based on an analysis of the reasons that led to delays in the launch of workshops and the production of low-quality products in real factories. For two seven-hour days, the game participants had to make decisions to solve various problems that arose in production. At the same time, they were divided into four groups that competed with each other. The strategies developed in the game were then applied at the plant - and led to an increase in production indicators. Unfortunately, the practice of business games (in the terminology of that time - “organizational and production tests”) was discontinued in our country in 1938. Later, in the 70s, a school of organizational activity games (ODG) arose in the USSR, and in the late 80s, Vladimir Tarasov created games in the field of business communication, now known as “Management duels.”

In the USA, the first business games began to be held in the 50s. They were originally developed for military purposes by the Rand Corporation, but very quickly became a “civilian” commercial product. The success of games in the United States was facilitated by the fact that games there immediately began to be played using computers. And at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century, marketers became actively interested in games.

The active penetration of gaming methods into marketing can be explained by several factors:

1. Impressive reach of adults in various gaming activities and monetization of these activities

The role-playing game movement, the reenactment movement, kasplay, subcultures around online computer games (from “Heroes of Might and Magic” to World of Tanks) - all these movements are united by the fact that adults spend a lot of money and a significant part of their free time on “ be in the game." Do you mean "gamers" and "extremes"? Do not hurry. First, look at your smartphone. Many of us have simple games there that help pass the time on the road. Did you know that the Russian mobile games market for 2016 is estimated by the Mail.ru portal at 16.3 billion rubles? And the fact that Candy Crush Saga, the most popular game in the 3 Match Puzzle genre, brings its creators about $100,000 a day? Such impressive monetization could not fail to attract the attention of marketing specialists.

1. Ubiquitous availability of mobile devices and the Internet

Various games and sweepstakes for visitors were held before, before the era of Internet marketing began. But the reach of the offline drawing, which requires customers to come to the store to claim prizes, is limited geographically. The audience that can be “reached” via the Internet is much wider and numbers millions of users - therefore, in the modern world, launching a game pays for itself much faster.

1. Decline in the effectiveness of traditional types of advertising

Clients unsubscribe from online mailings, are prohibited from inviting themselves to communities on social networks, they experience “banner blindness,” and are not motivated by promotions and discounts. This is primarily due to information overload, from which people are trying to escape. At the same time, the offer to “play” is still capable of involving the client in active communication with the company. Perhaps over time, gamification will cease to be effective, but for now it works.

Despite the positive trends, some marketers are skeptical about gamification. For example, Mikhail Kechenov Studio published , in which she explained why clients’ gaming activity does not bring results. According to experts, such projects are perceived as entertaining and do not affect sales in any way.

Our experience shows that game mechanics bring results that can be calculated in numbers, but more on that later.

So, gamification in marketing solves three problems:

1. User acquisition

Game elements involve users in interaction with the company. In addition, they are highly virulent: people willingly share their impressions of the game and the results achieved in the game both in conversations with friends and on social networks.

1. Keeping users' attention

Games and game elements require users to be active and attentive, so users stay on the site longer and perceive its content better.

1. Monetization of visits

Monetization is a consequence of attracting and retaining attention. The increase in income occurs both due to an increase in the number of visits and due to an increase in the time spent by the user on the site. In 5-7 minutes spent on the service, a potential client will see more main products - accordingly, the likelihood of converting a visitor into a buyer increases.

All gamification options can be divided into two large groups:

• Full-fledged games (quests), with their own plot, rules, playing space, etc.

• Introduction of individual game elements (game mechanics) into interaction with the client. Such elements can be tests, scores, assignment of ratings, etc.

Game elements in marketing: successful cases

1. Plazius platform

Plazius is a mobile application for paying bills in cafes and restaurants. The application allows you to accumulate points in loyalty programs of establishments connected to the system, and then exchange them for discounts. The application includes the following game elements:

• To earn points, you need to show the waiter the Plazius application, in which the guest’s order will be linked to the table number.
• Depending on the frequency and amount of purchases, customers are assigned different statuses. The higher the status in the program, the more bonus points the client receives with each purchase.

Rank mechanics bring 831 million rubles a month to restaurants with Plazius.

4.28 million guests confirm or increase their rank every month.

1. Social network Foresquare/Swarm

The Foresquare service has gone through a long and difficult history, including ups and downs. Initially, Foresquare was launched as a social network with a geopositioning function that helped a person find a suitable establishment (cafe, restaurant, bar) based on various parameters. Foresquare differed from other applications that collected reviews in its game dynamics: for visiting establishments, participants received so-called “check-ins”, which brought them various statuses. The person who had the most check-ins at a particular establishment received the status of “mayor” of that establishment. In addition, check-ins could be exchanged for discounts and various bonuses. The network was launched in 2009.

In May 2014, Foursquare introduced the Swarm application, thereby dividing functions: Foursquare became a database of places and recommendations, and Swarm was a check-in application. Initially, some of the game mechanics in Swarm were removed, which led to a decrease in the popularity of the application. Gradually, most of the mechanics were returned, and Swarm's popularity began to increase. In the new version, which was released in August of this year, some of the game mechanics have been changed due to the fact that users began to value privacy more. However, check-ins and “mayorship” are retained in the new version. Now Foresquare is valued at $250 million, and attracting customers through Swarm pays for itself many times over by increasing both the frequency of visits and the average check.

1. Postcards from Tanya Tavla on the M-Video and WWF websites

Tanya Tavla (Zadorozhnaya) is one of the most popular illustrators on the Internet. For two years in a row, on the eve of the New Year, M-Video launched a special section of the site where a person could make a greeting card with an illustration by Tanya. The service operated in two versions:

• quick production of postcards by randomly selecting a design;
• developing a postcard with a choice of character and background.

After sending a postcard by e-mail, the site visitor was offered household appliances at a discount. The proposal was designed in the style of Tanya Zadorozhnaya’s drawings and contained a reference to the postcard. There is no information about the marketing success of this campaign, but the very duration of the cooperation suggests that it was fruitful.

With the help of Tanya Tavla's postcards, WWF disseminates environmental information. Their website offers a simple and funny seven-question test on environmental behavior. The test results are sent by e-mail along with tips on how to make life more environmentally friendly and a drawing by Tanya. From the letter, the test result can be “shared” on social networks. The author of this article was happy to share with her friends that for nature she is a sensible muskrat.

Game in marketing: “golden case”
We will look at the use of quest games in marketing using the example of an e-mail game, which was launched in April of this year by M-Video (developed by Out of Cloud). Based on the plots of popular cartoons - “Rock Dog” and “LEGO: Ninjago Movie”, an email game was developed, in which participants completed exciting tasks, received thematic points and exchanged them for promotional codes with discounts. In this case, we did not use individual game elements (mechanics), but developed a complete game: with rules, tasks of various types, protection from gift hunters, etc.

The customer set the following tasks that the game was supposed to solve:

• Increase in money turnover per subscriber
• Increasing engagement of existing email subscribers and attracting new ones

As a result of the game:
- Turnover per subscriber increased 15 times compared to turnover from other mailings with promotional codes
- 30% of players who were not part of the email database became mailing list subscribers
- Return on investment was 760%
- Game mechanics have been scaled to a wider audience
- Positive feedback was received about the brand on social networks
And the case itself received gold at the Tagline Awards for the best use of eCRM.
Of course, gamification alone does not guarantee success. For it to bear fruit, several conditions must be met:

1. The game (or specific game mechanics) must be attractive to the target audience for which it is intended

The characters in the game should be familiar to this audience, and the actions performed should be sufficiently attractive and interesting.

2. Gamification must be clearly tied to marketing goals

You need to clearly understand what actions the game should stimulate users to take, and how its results will be monetized. For example, website development company DevHub missed this.

The company set a goal to increase its own popularity using gaming methods. For this purpose, a virtual currency was introduced, which the user could spend to view paid content and access additional functions. Later, the developers modernized the service, creating on its basis a full-fledged game with the code name “Empire Building”.

As a result, the number of visitors who began to complete the construction of the site increased from 10% to 80%. But at the same time, in absolute terms, one user gave the company only 40 cents per month.

After analyzing the situation, DevHub specialists came to the conclusion that they were unable to tie visits to strategically important goals and motivate users to take exactly those actions that lead to monetization of visits.

3. Having a qualified gaming practitioner on the team increases the chances of creating a successful game

To create games and implement game elements (mechanics), it is better to involve a gaming practitioner in the marketing team - a person who has experience in game development and understands the psychology of players. Fortunately, the market for gaming practitioners now exists and is actively developing, so it is possible to find such specialists.

Have fun and productive games!

Daria Bulatova