The Secret to Electronic Arts’ Success
Posted by Andrew
Like many other young males in my generation, I have an expensive addiction.
No, not drugs.
VIDEO GAMES!
This week marked this year’s release of Electronic Arts’ annual college football game. And like any good addict, I reserved and bought a copy.
I know that the value is marginal compared to last year’s game. A few new features, slightly improved graphics and animations, but I still purchased it anyway.
The “pull” was just too strong.
There are two lessons to take from this:
1) Release something in periodic installments and if,
2) the “pull” is strong enough, you can make some serious money.
Many football fans are stuck in a similar boat as me. We know the value of this year’s edition will probably not be worth the $60 investment, but we buy it anyway because we’re so addicted.
What can you do in your business to get people to continually pay in periodic installments?
Memberships? Subscriptions? Or follow EA’s model and just release a new version every so often?
What can you do to create that kind of “pull” that will sustain treating your customers like that?
Marketing? Advertising? Hype?
PS: A monopoly, where you’re the only game in town helps too.
EA has exclusive rights to the college and pro football licenses. There hasn’t been another serious pro football game since NFL 2K5 by Take Two.
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July 18th, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Cool post and I like how you’ve broken this down. What I think works in this situation is community. There are a huge community of people who buy these games (obviously you know) and if you don’t have it, you really might not fit in. You NEED this game because everyone else does.
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July 19th, 2009 at 12:52 AM
That’s one way of looking at it.
For me, I’m not very active in the football gaming community as it were. I play, but I don’t really interact with others. And yet I still buy the game?
But, you may be on to something. Kind of a subconscious, still wanting to fit in kind of thing perhaps?