by Marcel Stroop | July 10th, 2020
Gaming has been one of the few beneficiaries of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Global quarantine and stay-at-home orders preventing people from traveling, commuting, and socializing has resulted in a boom for the gaming industry.
It’s reflected in the numbers—as a whole, the industry is set to grow 9.3% this year, generating $159.3 billion in revenue. Tom Wijman of the gaming industry analyst Newzoo has estimated that the gaming industry will hit revenues above $200 billion by 2023. Gaming is bigger than the global music and movie industries combined.
Mobile gaming jumped 30% year over year when the pandemic hit Europe and the Americas in March. Even now that many countries are emerging into a ‘new normal’ post-pandemic environment, mobile gaming is still up almost 20% on last year. In-app payments have increased by 24% since the pandemic began and the amount of advertising required to convince people to download a game has reduced by 33%.
This is a serious opportunity for vendors—an increasingly dynamic market that requires a brand new level of player experience for the power users that have been emerging since Q1.
Industry-wide, these are great numbers, but some revenue models are faring better than others here. Both the Xbox and PlayStation are getting a reboot this year—after seven years—so the standard console game is likely to get a boost in 2021, but what about the mobile games featured in that revenue top ten?
Right now, the top-grossing mobile games are PUBG Mobile, Roblox, Candy Crush Saga, Gardenscapes, Fortnite, and, in China, Tencent’s Honor of Kings. All these games featured among Sensor Tower’s top games by worldwide revenues for March and April 2020. What is also interesting to see is that many of these games are several years old, for example, Candy Crush Saga was launched by King in 2012.
The interesting thing about the freemium business model is that most players never spend anything. A small number of gamers will spend significant amounts to progress inside a game they love—yes, those mystical creatures that we affectionately know as ‘whales’. Producing mobile games? Then you should absolutely be designing your customer experience strategy around maximizing value from the ‘whales’ in your player community.
Freemium mobile vendors need to place significant focus on correlative analysis to understand player behavior and design actions and events accordingly, as explained by Jerry Leisure, CEO of Officium Labs in a recent interview on the CX Files podcast:
“Start to do correlative analysis through data science. And then if you follow that correlative analysis, over time, you’ll start to see trends.” It should be possible to create cohorts of players with similar behavior and you can then run A/B tests on specific cohorts—to see how different behaviors can be encouraged or discouraged through specific actions or events in the game.
Jerry explained: “Once you get to that point [locating the correlating behavior], then that’s when you know that if I invest in customer service in this specific way then I’m going to get this output in revenue, play session time, and a decrease in churn—whatever the measurement is.”
The creation of a unique ID and the data analysis to identify correlations between actions in the game and gamer behavior are critical if you want to successfully monetize a mobile game and maximize the value of your whales. It is likely that just 2% of your players will spend any cash in a game and perhaps just 10% of those spending in-game can be classified as whales.
But proceed with caution. Maximizing the value of your whales must be handled carefully. The use of in-game purchases to earn revenue has often been criticized by some who believe that it can lead to addictive behaviors. Nintendo has backed away from mobile gaming because they are wary of the freemium model—but they also have hugely successful products with alternate revenue models, such as the Switch.
Managing your whales is becoming increasingly important as they are spending more and more on mobile games. Analysis by GameAnalytics published earlier in 2020 explored how the top 5% of gamers by revenue have increased their in-game spending by over 20% over the past three years. It’s likely that this figure will be revised upwards once the data includes the lockdown period throughout Q2 of this year.
Consider implementing VIP support or experience programs. Use data to identify key actions and moments where player experience can be stepped up for your whales—with the help of in-game agents acting as peers, or via additional rewards built-in using payment triggers. Take a look at some of 5CA’s case studies to see how it can be done.
As you focus attention on your whales and ensure they are having a great experience, don’t lose sight of the players who are enjoying the game and not spending anything. They may not be spending now, but some of them may be your future whales and the game environment is improved by having more players, even if most are not generating revenue.
Your player experience strategy needs to embrace the whales and make them feel especially loved, but not at the expense of creating a poor experience for everyone else. Mobile games are booming and the whales are spending more. It’s time to show that minority of players just how much you value their attention.
Marcel is our Sales Manager and heads up the team of Account Managers. He is very passionate about making the life of our and your customers easier. Marcel also loves to work on the growth of 5CA, and to confirm some stereotypes, as a proud Dutchman he loves to cycle.
Gaming is the world’s #1 lifestyle choice, played by more people than any other form of entertainment. We’ve had a ringside seat for its evolution, working hand-in-hand with our clients to support their customers as they enter huge, new immersive worlds.
The times, they are a-most-definitely-changing. As seasoned CX veterans know, plenty of the received wisdoms of third-party contact center management have received something of a battering over the last few years.
If you were not able to attend “CX Strategy: What now?”, our panel debate from last week, then here it is. An insightful, thought-provoking hour with industry gurus Mark Hillary, Stephen Loynd, Peter Ryan and our own Robert Van Diem. Here are some of the themes that really stood out for us.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be participating in a debate hosted by 5CA on October 27th. The title is CX Strategy: What Now? It’s going to be particularly topical, as one of the key things we will discuss, in the midst of this pandemic, is working from home (WFH) in the CX arena.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be participating in a debate hosted by 5CA on October 27th. The title is CX Strategy: What Now? I know that there are a lot of webinars and online debates these days, but I really think you should make time for this one:
Following on from National Customer Service Week, our Chief Customer Officer Rob van Herpen reflects on the journey that customer service has undergone in the last decade, and the role it plays within the wider scope of the whole customer experience.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be moderating a webinar hosted by 5CA on October 27th. The title is CX Strategy: What Now? I know you might be thinking “another day, another webinar invitation,” but as I’m chairing the debate I want to try making this one a little different. We can’t meet at conferences right now so the very least anyone planning a new webinar can do is to ensure it’s interesting and this one should hit the ball out of the park.
Gaming has been one of the few beneficiaries of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Global quarantine and stay-at-home orders preventing people from traveling, commuting, and socializing has resulted in a boom for the gaming industry. Maximize the value of your VIP players and discover how work from home (WFH) support helps you add more value to your gaming whales.
Game launched? Check. Player hype? Check. Champagne? Crack that bottle, you deserve it! But while it bubbles on your tongue, let me ask you this: Have you considered how to respond to players who need assistance or want to provide feedback? And when your player base grows (and let's be honest it will - your game is awesome), what will you do when those interactions start exploding in languages you do not speak? How will you manage the volume of requests coming in, but still provide the best possible user experience to your fans?
Yes…. Another thought piece on how COVID-19 is re-shaping life as we know it and what can we learn from it going forward. With people stuck at home and shops closed, several industries, such as e-commerce, streaming entertainment, and gaming, are experiencing hyperactivity. The influx is driving revenues but also customer support needs.
Did anyone see that Assassins’ Creed Valhalla announcement trailer? Of course you did. Chances are you did not discover it on your own, but instead it appeared on your social media channels, most likely shared by a fan of the franchise or an influencer. At least that is how it happened to me. Game marketing truly has changed in the era of digital, community, and influencers.
It’s often said, ‘people are the weakest link in cybersecurity’. I get that and I agree that we must seek to minimize human-related threat vectors. But I believe that if we view our people, our teammates, as our greatest security asset, then we start from a position of strength.
In BPO, we often talk about how we deliver the best possible customer experience. We focus on training knowledgeable and empathetic agents, we run and rerun staffing simulations to ensure minimal wait times. These things are important, but, for the most part, once a customer is reaching out to us, it’s already a ding to the overall customer experience. Customers want an easy experience that works as it should and is intuitive.
Last month, Vice ran an interesting article by Jess Morrissette on how games marketing invented toxic gaming culture by promoting toxicity and harassment as value propositions for gaming. While considered perfectly reasonable at the time, games marketing has luckily taken a turn for the better.
One of the most interesting things about the gaming industry is that gamers don’t behave like customers. Sure, they have no problem spending like customers, but their devotion and passion makes them more like super-fans.
With more and more companies providing work-from-home possibilities, and children spending more time at home during school breaks, many tend to fill the time previously spent commuting or at after-school activities on picking up new or old hobbies. It comes as no surprise that playing video games is one of those favored hobbies.
The World Health Organization and almost every national government has encouraged everyone in non-essential roles to stay at home. With millions of people in self-isolation, there is a real need to ensure these people have something to do.
Companies across the world are facing an unprecedented wave of disruption at present. One of the specific outcomes from this is that many people are suddenly working from home. Many have no experience working away from the office and so the business journals are full of tips on how to make it work.
Companies across the world are finding their business extremely disrupted at present and it looks like things may get worse before they get better. During this time there has been a strong focus on the need for people to work from home...
In this new day and age where no one spends more than 67 seconds away from a screen without at least a hint of anxiety, recruiting and engaging this new wave of job seekers is no less complicated than swiping right, get a match and then not really knowing how to open a conversation anymore (sound familiar?).
One methodology to aid in creating the right structure and behaviors in the customer support or customer service domain is called KCS (Knowledge-Centered Service).
In virtually any organization where continuous learning and improvement are priorities, there will eventually be a need to organize learning and training using a Learning Management System (LMS)...
Consumer support over any channel, in any language, at any time: 5CA’s successful contact center as a service is possible because we use technology to make planet Earth our talent pool. It also presents an intriguing challenge: How do we balance flexibility, productivity, and security?
The most common response I get when I tell people I work in Workforce Management (WFM), often coupled with a very confused facial expression, is “Hmmm, is that in HR…?”
We’ve probably all heard of quality assessment (QA) before, where a quality specialist goes over agent interactions and checks to see if there are any possible areas of improvement or development...
The most successful companies make listening and understanding their customers a vital part of their business strategy. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
Staff engagement has a variety of factors that employees should give attention to, and one of these factors that I am particularly passionate about is employee development.
Chances are your company has a defined mission statement. A short description of your market, goals, and how you intend to reach those goals...
What do you make of this phrase: If we want to improve our CSAT then we need to increase FCR! If you're new to customer service then this is probably complete gibberish to you...
