1

Internet Marketing Plan

Future War
Jay Jensen

Internet Marketing BA655

 I. Situational Analysis

The video game industry has become a phenomenon around the world. People of all age

groups, ethnic backgrounds, and income levels play video games and thus spend money on video

games. According to an article on msn.com by Reuters by the year 2011, the worldwide gaming

market will be worth $48.9 billion. A highly anticipated and popular game can sell millions of

copies within the first few days of being released. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 one of the

most highly anticipated games of all time had more than 2.4 million preorders in the U.S alone

prior to its release. “The debut of the highly anticipated shooting game Call of Duty: Modern

Warfare 2 set a sales record for the industry, Variety reported: the game, which retails for

$59.99, sold 4.7 million units in its first day on sale in the United States and Britain, taking in

$310 million for the game publisher Activision Blizzard (Itzkoff 2009).” The game retails at

$59.99. Call of Duty is a series of war based games the original modern warfare released a few

years ago has sold more than 13 million copies to date.

This marketing plan is for Future war a game that will be released in the same genre.

Future war will utilize a hugely entertaining online and off line game playing experience, an

online ordering system, and superior customer service to become very popular. Future war will

be set in first person perspective and will include hypothetical war situations set in the future.

The following SWOT analysis states the internal strengths and weaknesses of the product

and the external opportunities and threats.

 3

Strengths Weaknesses

• Developers have a lot of gaming • Development takes a long time

experience • Lack of development experience
• Educational background of the • Lack of brand recognition
developers
• Future war will highlight unreal
future weaponry

Opportunities Threats
• Global online sales • Large amount of competition
• Offering a great online and • Economy is weak
offline experience

The developers of future war have a lot of gaming experience and thus know what

gamers like and dislike about particular games. Also our educational background in marketing

will provide the tools to create an effective marketing campaign making the game more

appealing to customers and create a demand prior to the release of future war. The game will be

war based but will differ from other war based games as it will be set in the future using

fictitious situations and weapons.

Weaknesses include that development takes a long time so ROI is slow. Developers lack

experience developing games. We will hire experienced developers to assist in production.

Since this is the first game released the company and the game do not have brand recognition

which makes it more difficult to sell to gamers. Consumers who play video games tend to buy

games from companies that they are familiar with that way they are certain that the company

produces entertaining games.

 Although there are numerous games on the market that offer both online and offline

experiences few of them are exceptional in both categories at the same time. The game we are

offering has equally entertaining online and offline game play experiences. With very little

modification games can be sold to consumers in any country this coupled with internet sales and

reasonably priced worldwide shipping creates the opportunity to sell future war globally. If the

game is entertaining and creates a following it can lead to future sales with minimal effort in the

form of a game sequel.

The amount of competition in the video game industry poses the biggest threat. There are

numerous developers including some of the three big video game system manufacturers.

Fortunately any game can be successful if it is good enough even amongst fierce competition.

The e-business objectives include creating a functional web site and extranet in which

retailers can order the game online 24 hours a day with minimal effort. Selling the game over an

extranet will ensure order accuracy and tracking and prompt delivery.

E-business strategies include a number of online mechanisms that will allow ease of ordering

for retailers and constant support to both retailers and end consumers. These include an easy to

use online chat mechanism in which retailers and end consumers can contact representatives for

questions and concerns about the game.

Using the internet provides the opportunity to employ effective performance metrics so that

problems and concerns can be tracked and categorized as well as number of copies ordered. The

number of times that the web site and online advertisements are visited and for how long will

also be closely monitored.

II. E-marketing strategic planning

 5

While there are a lot of video games on the market, the ones that stand out and gather a

following of players continue to sell. As mentioned previously few games offer a great quality

game both online and offline that is one of the differentiating factors with this game. We will use

the shift of the gaming market to online playing to our advantage and to separate this game from

the rest of the market.

The biggest segment of game buyers and players is older adults. We will segment customers

into age groups, income, and education. The segments will be rated and then resources will be

allocated to market to each segment.

The target market includes all game players over the age of 17 years old; especially gamers

that enjoy first person shooter gaming both online and offline. The entertainment software

association has broken down a list of industry facts that help with targeting:

• The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

• The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 39 years old.

• Forty percent of all game players are women.

• In 2009, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 50 play video games, an increase

from nine percent in 2002.

• Thirty seven percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device

(www.theesa.com 2009).

We will primarily target the consumers described above male adults between 25 and 55 years

old that have disposable income. These consumers will be the most likely to purchase and play
the game. Other consumers will also see the television and print advertisements, obviously. But

they will be directed toward the demographic that is most likely to want the game.

We will differentiate our game by entertainment value, online and offline experience, and

service after the sale. The differentiating factor for any video game is the entertainment value.

Video games are strictly for entertainment. So the number one factor is the entertainment value

of the game. As discussed previously the producers have years of video game playing experience

which will translate into a better entertainment experience for the users. Also our service after

the sale will differentiate us. We will sell merchandise and software upgrades through the web

site and staff enough people to answer questions and troubleshoot problems with the game.

We want to position the game as the most entertaining game with the best online

experience and service after the sale ever created. We want to stand out from the competition

with an interactive online experience that is unequaled. This will eventually lead to becoming the

number one game producer in the world.

III. Objectives

The primary objective is to create an online gaming experience unequaled by any on the

market today. The online experience will utilize the power of the internet to dissolve borders

between countries and bring gamers together from around the world to play against each other.

By doing this we will build unparalleled brand recognition and customer loyalty which will be

used to springboard huge sales of future war and following games in the series.

Utilizing the strategies previously mentioned will lead to strong customer service and support

which will in turn lead to customer satisfaction and thus help to build good relationships with

retailers as well as end consumers. This will lead to increased sales and potential for both the
 7

current game and future games.

The best selling game of all time sold 7 million copies on the day of release. It was highly

anticipated and the producers spent upwards of $50 million in marketing. Since we will be

spending considerably less on marketing and do not have any recognition yet we are anticipating

selling 50,000 copies a week for the first ten weeks and then slowly decreasing sales week over

week, overall sales objective is to sell 1.5 million copies.

IV. E-marketing strategy

The e-marketing strategy will include advertising on social networking sites, video game

forums and video game related television shows. We will also advertise in gaming publications

and in the online forums on the video game consoles web sites.

Marketing costs will be shared with the major video game console manufacturers on which

the game will be played. A substantial sum of resources will be allocated to E-marketing and

advertising. A substantial amount of resources will also be allocated to traditional advertising via

television and print ads. Marketing is very important because of the amount of competition. A

fairly new concept will be used in advertising in which gamers will be able to download a very

small portion of the game via the internet prior to the release so that they can experience game

this will lead them to want to purchase the game so that they can continue the experience.

The product will be distributed to retailers who will then distribute it to the end users. We

will build a relationship with retailers as mentioned previously by an interactive web site that

updates them as to the progress of the game and any new developments that may arise. They will

also be able to ask question through e-mail correspondence. Marketing and advertising will also

use a relationship between future war producers, game console makers, and retailers by utilizing
a combined and shared marketing and advertising agenda and sharing costs.

V. Implementation

Development of future war will begin immediately. Television advertising will begin six

months prior to the release of the game. Waiting until then will reduce both costs and avoid

customers losing interest because they have to wait too long. Online play will be ready on the

release date. There will be plenty of servers for online play in order for all expected sales to be

able to play online at the same time. The web site and social networking advertising will begin 8

months prior to the game release in order to let word of mouth advertising spread.

Distribution will be done via a national shipping company two days prior to the public

release date. Future war will be shipped to the retailers’ warehouses and they can distribute them

to their stores. Smaller retailers can have the game shipped directly to their store if they decide to

choose that option on the internet based ordering system.

VI. Budget

We will utilize social networking and the online gaming platform to market the game and

create more sales after the release reducing the costs of initial marketing. $5 million will be used

for online advertising and $5 million for traditional advertising costs.

Productions costs will be significant, but will be recouped once the game is released. Costs to

build the web site and the software to develop the extranet will also be significant, but will save

money in processing paper or telephone orders. Total costs including salaries, production costs

office supply costs, will be $10 million.

The games will retail for 59.99 per game which is the industry norm. Industry norm for
 9

retailers’ markup is around 20% (Andros, Chinai, Conley, Lipkowitz, & Perez) so we will

receive $48 per game. Selling 1.5 million copies will result in sales of approx $72 million. Total

investment costs include $10 million in marketing and advertising and $10 million in salaries,

development, office and other expenses. Sales of $72 million will result in an ROI [($72 million

- $20 million)/ $20 million] = 2.6

IV.Evaluation Plan

Measures and controls will be built into the online game playing experience as well as the

interactive web site. We will have users fill out surveys and questionnaires online on the web site

and also while they are between stages of the game. We will also use the internet to track sales

and online play. The internet can be used to send patches to address any software problems

immediately.

Controls will be mostly handled by the software patches mentioned previously. Any

problems that occur that cannot be handled in this manner can be handled using the web site.

There will be people staffed that can answer questions through an online chat or over the

telephone.
Reference:

Reuters, Video-game sales overtaking music. Retrieved November 11, 2009 from

www.msn.com.

Industry Facts Retrieved November 1, 2009 from www.theesa.com.

Andros, Ed. Chinai, Priti. Conley, James. Lipkowitz, Elise. & Perez, David. Use of a Game

over: Emulation and the Video Game Industry, a White Paper. Retrieved November 2, 2009

from www.law.nortwestern.edu.

Itzkoff, Dave. Record Sales for Modern Warfare 2. Retrieved November 17, 2009 from

www.nytimes.com.