VideoGamers.net™ e-Business Proposal
Des Manttari
ET4 – e-commerce Project 2
Prof. Jeannie Novak
November 4, 2003.
VideoGamers.net™ e-Business Proposal
1.0 video-gamers.net Summary
VideoGamers.net™ (http://www.video-gamers.net) will be formed as a online dating/commerce site that focuses on providing an online dating service to the gaming community via a monthly membership fee, and then selling gaming products to that community online. VideoGamers.net™ will match gamers with similar interests to other gamers for romance and gameplay (example, grouping Playstation 2 owners or MMORPG players or Final Fantasy fans together or even gamers in the same geographical region such as Los Angeles or Tokyo).
1.1 Objectives
1. Attract 250,000 registered users in the first year who pay a monthly fee of $10.00.
2. Bring in two million page views a month by the end of the first year.
3. Sell an average of $300,000 of merchandise a month by the end of the first year.
1.2 Keys to Success
1. Provide gaming products not for sale anywhere else online, all at competitive prices, in a business-to-consumer online model.
2. Provide as much relevant, original, content about the gamers as possible, and have a large part of this content be derived from consumer-to-consumer interaction such as chat rooms, discussion forums, email correspondence, and personal bios and blogs.
3. Partner with Electronic Boutique and Best Buy to give VideoGamers.net™ online store a physical presence in these retail stores.
2.0 Market Analysis Summary
1. Any person in the United States with an interest in video games who would like to meet and date other gamers.
2. Gaming manufacturers, video game outlets and retailers -- both offline and online.
3. Video game trade organizations, interactive media and game design schools.
2.1 Market Segmentation and Interactivity
VideoGamers.net™ will focus on young, single gamers. There has recently been a surge of interest in gaming in the U.S. female population. Additionally, many gamers are between 18-35 years old, have professional jobs with discretionary incomes, and are well connected to the Internet in addition to being comfortable with dating online and communicating via email, discussion forums, and chat rooms. It is important to make the site as truly interactive as possible by integrating these forms of online communication. A possible source of revenue could be a MMORPG in which members’ avatars could interact socially, date, and “marry” each other online. An additional fee of X dollars would be incorporated into this package. Also, emerging cell phone technology could be used to link potential gamers together. Another form of unique interactivity would include a feedback rating system for not only games and game systems, but for the various gamers one meets and dates through the membership. This rating system could include an “A-list” and a “Blacklist” of members.
2.2 Website Demographics Strategy
VideoGamers.net™ is focused on the hardcore gaming community, and the casual gaming community. These gamers currently do not have good e-commerce sites where they can meet and date other gamers. Many gamers who have joined the hobby in the past few years are highly educated, young single professionals looking to spend their discretionary income, and their free time on their hobby – gaming. These young people are available to date and feel comfortable finding someone with a similar interest online.
2.2.1 Market Needs
There currently is no one place for gamers to officially meet and date online.
Gamers as a group have many commerce and emotional needs that are currently only fulfilled offline and through word-of-mouth at gaming conventions, college campuses, and offline gaming retail stores.
1. Gamers want to know what the latest and greatest gaming products are.
2. Gamers want to date other gamers with similar interests.
3. Gamers are increasingly the type of demographic that buys products online. They want to use their spare time to play games -- not to attempt dating in traditional offline settings such as bars and gyms.
2.2.2 Market Trends
An important trend is providing product information and dating online. In the last several years there have been many specialty dating sites launched, www.kissykat.com for example, and general sites for video game enthusiasts, such as www.gamespot.com, but not any single large site for gamers to meet other gamers while shopping for game-related products. VideoGamers.net™ will create a place for gaming enthusiasts to research, rate and review other gamers which they meet and date and to purchase products online and rate these as well.
2.2.3 Market Growth
The market for video games is growing astronomically. As more and more people in the U.S. get involved in gaming, it is becoming the largest entertainment industry. In almost every U.S. city you can find video game retail stores. Most of these stores did not exist ten years ago. Gaming is also becoming more and more popular with young educated women. As they get older and get jobs they will have more discretionary income to use for video games and consoles as well as online monthly membership fees to dating and MMORPG sites. The general online demographic right now in the United States is also in sync with the types of people who are taking up gaming: young males and females in their 20's and 30's with discretionary income and Internet connections.
2.3 Industry Analysis
The video game industry in the U.S. consists of a few recognized console manufacturers, thousands of different retail stores, and tens of thousands of websites, commercial and fansites. The video game industry has yet to really mobilize online. VideoGamers.net™ will be ready to take advantage of the mobilization of gaming online, as the first to market a gaming commerce site with dating to support selling products online.
3.0 Website Strategy
The VideoGamers.net™ dating/commerce site will focus on providing video game products and product information to the U.S. and global gaming community as well as providing a dating service and general centralized “global village” for gamers. VideoGamers.net™ will have a fast loading, extremely user friendly user interface (UI) to encourage users to browse and click through as many pages on the site as possible. The UI will be key to the Web strategy, as it needs to appeal to the audience, encourage purchasing, but at the same time be simple and clean.
VideoGamers.net™ will provide a marketplace of gaming products to gamers across the U.S. and globally. Key to the Web strategy is to arrange that information in such a way as to make sure that each user can browse through products and find relevant product content in a very simple easy to use manner. For example, a user could search by console, game, region, genre of game, age, nationality, sexual preference, etc. VideoGamers.net™ will sell targeted advertising to video game manufacturers, video game retail sites, and console manufacturers.
3.1 Business Model
Our business model is based on selling products to our users, by giving them the information they need to make their dating and product decisions online. VideoGamers.net™ will sell products to its users through special sales and offerings in newsletters and in a special gaming “shopping” center. It will offer a monthly fee to members who wish to meet and date other gamers and who wish to engage in MMORPGs offered by the site. Paypal will be used as well as a secure shopping cart system. We will focus on creating a back end that is quick, always up, and extremely secure. The front end will allow gamers to browse through products and gamers dating bios much in the same way they browse through products at a brick and mortar store. We will rate and review gamers who subscribe to our dating service and do our best to police our service and protect our members against fraud and various online scams.
3.2 Site Positioning
The VideoGamers.net™ commerce site positioning statement is as follows:
“VideoGamers.net™ is for the avid gamer who wants to easily purchase gaming products online, and find friends and romance with other gamers. VideoGamers.net™ will provide gamers a complete online catalog of gaming products and gamers available for relationships through our online dating service, as well as recommendations and product information based on their skill level and interest.”
3.3 Traffic Forecast
For VideoGamers.net™ the most important traffic measurement is page views and user sessions. It is important to measure how many times a month a user comes to the VideoGamers.net™ dating site, as that shows advertisers, investors, and sponsors the value of the users and the sense of community which we have established online.
3.4 Development Requirements
The VideoGamers.net™ website will be initially developed with a team of engineers (Web developers, C++ programmers, and software developers). It will be a site heavy on technical infrastructure, allowing us to store a very up-to-date, and easy to manipulate, product database. VideoGamers.net™ will focus on an extremely easy to use UI and will employ a team of producers and UI experts to develop the site internally. This is a core competency for VideoGamers.net™ and cannot be outsourced to a design firm.
3.4.1 Front End
For VideoGamers.net™ the UI design of the website is a key to the success of the company. The UI needs to:
1. Have a clear and easy to use navigation scheme.
2. Fast loading, non-graphic-intensive pages. Many of the gamers will be accessing the site from home on their dial-up connections.
3. Graphics and UI that gamers can identify with. The site needs to have a technologically slick personality to appeal to the target audience.
4. A consistent front-end* UI on all applications built for the content. Users should always know how to browse through products and find relevant product information.
5. VideoGamers.net™ will need to engage game designers to recommend products and endorse the RockClimbOnline.com commerce website.
3.4.2 Back End
The back end* of our website will need these features:
1. Web hosting with 99.99% uptime. We will host the site at a major data center.
2. Statistics to determine: page views, unique users, banner impressions, sponsorship impressions and clickthroughs.
3. A back end that is easily plugged into the following commerce tools:
• Shopping cart.
• Product database that is easily browsed and searched.
• Recommendations engine.
• Ability to rate products and other gamers or recommend them to gamers of certain expertise levels.
4. Back-end application to support newsletters and a robust email alert system.
3.4.4 Future Development
After initial implementation of the VideoGamers.net™ website, future development will be based on resources and business needs.
1. PHASE II will expand the site to include 100% of the gaming products available in the U.S., and will add game designers’ product recommendations.
2. PHASE III will add a recommendations engine, and will allow gamers to rate products that they have purchased as well as gamers they have met through our service.
4.0 Strategy and Implementation Summary
VideoGamers.net™ will focus on bringing experienced “hardcore” gamers, and the less experienced but enthusiastic yuppie gamers, to its website. VideoGamers.net™’s value proposition is creating a website with complete product catalog, product information, and recommendations to gamers all over the U.S. and globally and to become a central meeting ground for gamers of all ages, experience levels, races, etc. to form friendships and romance. A section of the site should be devoted to customer success stories, such as beating that perfect game score or finding that special gaming soulmate.
4.1 Competitive Edge
There currently is no other dating site for gamers online, so if the implementation happens quickly, we will be first to market. If we can also implement original product content that helps users purchase products online, we will be that much further ahead of every other online retailer in our space.
4.2 Website Marketing Strategy
Online marketing will be critical to VideoGamers.net™. It will be the best way to spread the news about our website and let gamers globally know about this new dating/commerce site.
VideoGamers.net™ will start with a few key online initiatives:
1. We will develop partnerships with as many online gaming retailers as possible, linking to them in exchange for links to us.
2. We will seek out all rock climbing organizations and gyms that have online sites, and find unique co-marketing and co-branding opportunities to allow them to expose our content to their members.
3. We will develop a partnership with Electronic Boutique’s brick and mortar outdoor supplier in order to have a presence in the offline world.
We will develop a unique viral (i.e., “word of mouth”) online marketing program to get gamers to spread the word to all of their friends. We will motivate gamers to participate by letting them know that for each member that registers through them, we will donate X dollars toward a game of their choice.
4.3 Online Sales Strategy
Our business sales are defined as selling as much product as possible in addition to signing up new members who pay a monthly fee to use our dating service. The more successful our online marketing, the more traffic and users we will bring to our site. As long as we build a flawless commerce site, we can then turn traffic and users into actual sales of gaming products. We will also use traffic statistics to show how many times a month our users visit our site, and how much time they spend on the site, in order to sell banner advertising and sponsorships. By having a database of statistics on gamers through our dating service, advertisers know which products to target on our site.
4.5 Strategic Internet Alliances
VideoGamers.net™ will depend on partnerships and co-brands to increase online distribution and to increase revenue opportunities. These partnerships and co-brands will help to legitimize VideoGamers.net™ and add a revenue stream. Partnerships will involve a split on advertising revenue, assuming that the partner drives a minimum amount of traffic to the co-brand. VideoGamers.net™ will also partner with Electronic Boutique as an offline brick and mortar strategic partner. This is important to our strategy, as it will allow us to have an offline presence. By building strategic partnerships we will gain more visibility in the marketplace and shut out future competitors from doing partnership deals with the partners we chose.
