ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.05 - AUGUST 2000

Your Move...

by Jacquie Kubin

A Look At How And Why Packaged Gaming Companies Are Adding On-line Elements To Their Business Plans

Leisure on-line games are proving to be tough competition for the hard core games that traditionally dominated the arena. © Electronic Arts.

In 1998, "think tankers" Forrester Research, Inc. reported that leisure table games, card, board and television game show games are becoming more popular to on-line players than "hard core gamer" games such as Quake or Doom. This is not to say that all those adolescent to young adult males who enjoy their first person shooters suddenly took an interest in on-line bridge tournaments. It means that today's on-line game players are not just made up of teen age boys between the ages of 18-32.

The card and board game audiences are potentially huge with more than 100 million active members. Numbers at on-line sites such as Pogo.com and Uproar.com exceed three and four million registered users.

A key reason for game site popularity increases is that visitors to on-line game sites spend long periods of time not just playing, but also chatting with other gamers in community chat rooms and message boards. Gamesville.com reports that the average visitor spends more than four hours per visit.

As impressive as having millions of loyal registered users is, that number represents only a percentage of the more than 40 million U.S. households that are on-line. At the turn of the millennium, the Internet has become a large part of every day life. It continually changes consumer habits. It is a communication, e-commerce and entertainment destination.

With these large numbers of targeted users identified, it is no wonder that the gaming companies are seeking to increase the loyalty of console game playing households while reading over to the Internet family demographic as a new revenue resource.

© Access Communications.

Sega Goes On-Line
First to market Sega of Japan, Inc. is baiting more than 28 million gaming customers with the lure of a free Dreamcast console when they sign-up for SegaNet (www.sega.com), a fee-based Internet service provider and gaming destination rolled into one that gives users a gateway to the World Wide Web through their PC and/or Sega.

"Giving away the console is a small price to pay to be able to own the multiplayer games on-line," says Charles Bellfield, director of communications, Sega of America from his San Francisco office. "Deploying SegaNet will allow us to build a community of gamers that we will engage not through the PC or desktop, but through the living space. This battle for the consumer will take place on the living room sofa."

The Dreamcast, Sega's latest enhancement to console gaming, was released to market this last spring and came equipped with a 57K modem and a keyboard peripheral port, though early adopters of the console had no need for either. Installing those unseen extras was a bit of forecasting on the part of the hardware manufacturer who will be deploying SegaNet this fall.

For those who have already purchased a Dreamcast or for those getting ready to make the purchase, when making a two year commitment ($21.95 per month) to the SegaNet ISP, they will receive a rebate check (up to $199) for the cost of the Sega Dreamcast gaming console.

With the cost to acquire a new e-commerce customer ranging as high as $600 each for financial sites such as E-Trade and averaging more in the $200 range for other sites, giving away the $249 console, at retail, might be an inexpensive way to forge brand loyalty within a hotly competitive market.

"You will not need to be a part of the SegaNet ISP to play the SegaNet games, but you will want to be as it will be a faster network that consistently delivers packets without latency," Bellfield explains. "The person who wants performance for enhanced interactive game play will want the edge that SegaNet technology will deliver."

Joining the on-line gaming revolution does not remove the requirement to buy the packaged game but it does allow Johnny in New Jersey to battle Kyle in Texas, moving the often solo activity of electronic game playing into a more social arena.

 

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